The Unworthy
by SEWH
Summary: A story based in the original Guild Wars world after the burning of Ascalon. Six Ascalonians set off on a journey through the wilds of Kryta in search of a book for the White Mantle. What they find is a world of deceit and intrigue behind the curtain of righteousness; can they work together to defeat their enemies? Based on the beta-test version of the original Guild Wars.


**The Unworthy**

(Guild Wars fanfic)

1.

Eithna stood at the edge of the wild lands, the flaming scepter clutched tightly in her right hand. Her thumb caressed the single orange jewel in the handle out of sheer nerves. She looked left and right, wondering how a trip into the hottest hells of Kryta with five strangers would prove her worth to the White Mantle. She gritted her teeth, frustrated. She'd yet to achieve enough notice to merit training; they held the plum just out of reach to make her dance to their tune. She'd rounded up stray pigs, delivered messages, chased a drunken dwarf off Crafter's Corner and still…ugh. At least this errand would allow her to show her skills to the Justiciars. Maybe then she'd earn the right to train further, and rise to Justiciar herself one day. She shot a nervous glance at the small, thin monk lost in contemplative thought as they awaited the rest of the party. She'd introduced herself earer to Eithna as Sorcha, nodded once, then dropped into a strange sitting position and gone silent. Eithna tapped her foot and shifted her weight.

"You're no quieter than when you were six," a voice whispered behind her.

She whirled in surprise. "And you're no taller," she teased. The massive, brawny warrior garbed in leather and steel hugged her to him. "Roibhilin, I'm glad it's you. The monk with us is called Sorcha." Eithna sent him a sly look. "She doesn't say much, but I hear you prefer your women that way."

Roibhilin ni Searlas let out a booming laugh that shook the trees and sent a flurry of small colourful birds fluttering toward the sky. "Too true, noisy girl. It's good to see you. We heard you were to be sent to the Mantle for training."

Eithna shook her head, her bright green eyes stormy. "First I have to prove that I am worthy of their time and effort, Roibh. You know how they are. Stuffy, but they keep us safe."

"Perhaps they do and perhaps they don't." A new figure eased into the small clearing just beside them. "Aedan ni Uscias." He wore a feathered mask over part of his face, and his eyes were searing blue beads within it. Eithna drew a small breath at the darkling energy rippling around him.

"Eithna ni Tynan. And this hulk is Roibhilin ni Searlas, a good friend of my childhood."

"I have heard much of your fathers during my early years." The man bowed slightly at the waist. "They are much revered for all they did to protect Ascalon."

A bitter laugh came from behind the mesmer. "Aye, for all the good it did Ascalon, and for all the good it does us here in hot, wet Kryta."

Eithna lifted an eyebrow. "Famous companions we're to have, Roibhilin. This is Riocard ni Quinlan, late of Justiciar Hablion's company."

The ranger arched a brow right back at her for her slightly derisive tone. "Not of, precisely, more like with. Like you, the scion of old Ascalonian glories. This is Ruari, my lynx." The lynx rubbed against Riocard's long lean leg and stretched. Eithna swore the cat was grinning at her, and blinked at it twice to be sure it hadn't been a trick of the sun.

Roibhilin snickered. "Diverse group we are, in all but birth. All we need now is a handler of the dead and dying to complete us."

"My thanks, warrior, for that lovely introduction." The husky voice came from beside the monk. "I am Macha ni Conn, necromancer." The leggy brunette rose from her crouch. "I believe that makes six of us. Hablion told me there would be. Which of you got the marching orders for our latest errand?"

Eithna chuckled. "So what carrot did the Justiciars hold out for you, Macha? I'm Eithna ni Tynan, aspiring flamethrower."

Riocard laughed then, the lynx's grin growing in rhythm to the sound. "Seems we've more in common than Ascalonian heritage, my friends."

"Truly the grace of the Unseen Ones will bless us," the monk murmured, standing beside them. "Sorcha ni Ambros. Confessor Darrigan sent me to you with instructions to keep you safe and healthy, as well as a map and a plan for us to accomplish."

The other five drew nearer to her to listen attentively. The tiny blonde had a voice as small as her body, and a delicacy of appearance that contrasted with the rough brown vestments of her profession.

* * *

2.

Eithna missed the company of her boisterous friend Roibh. He'd made the earlier part of the journey easier as the town faded to lush green jungle; slicing his way through plants and hacking out a path to follow the map the monk kept clutched in her hands, Roibh had been a comfort to her. Familiar, and safe. The silent company of Riocard and Macha left her little distraction from her thoughts.

"Why did you come?" Eithna asked the quiet ranger. She fought the temptation to stroke the silky looking fur of his lynx. Her mother had despaired of getting her to stop petting things when nerve-laden. Somehow, Eithna didn't figure the animal would take well to the petting.

The quiet green of his eyes assessed her. "Did I have another choice, then? I'd not been aware of it. It was go with the group of Sorcha's experiments, or be turned out with nothing. Or worse."

"Worse?" Eithna was puzzled. "What is worse than starving?"

His firm lips twisted slightly. "Death, I suppose."

"You die of starvation," Eithna pointed out.

"You die faster if you defy the Mantle," Riocard answered calmly. Suddenly his bow was in his hands, an arrow nocked and at the ready.

Eithna was startled, summoning up the attunement with fire that was hers naturally, preparing to cast. "What is it, Riocard?"

"Spiders," he answered with a grimace. "Sorcha! Spiders!"

The monk retreated to the back at his side as Roibh took a step forward, his eyes searching. Eithna spotted them, and raised her arms as she shouted to Roibh. "On your left just ahead! In the trees!" She pulled both fists down and sent a wild storm of firestreams to rain down death on the spiders. They had swarmed Roibh as Riocard fired a hail of arrows into the crowd of insects. Eithna gasped as Roibh cried out, his face twisting in agony. A cloud of dark green noxious vapour appeared around Aedan and Roibh. Eithna drove forward, her legs pressing against the hairy dry bodies of the insects, and visualized the burning bright phoenix in her mind's eye. The ranger's arrows caught fire as the fiery bird burst from her raised fingers and the spiders shrieked aloud.

"Draw back!" Sorcha shouted, a clear blue light emanating from her fingers to surround the mesmer and the warrior. "They've poisoned you!"

Eithna's arms shook with burning pain as Riocard's lynx brought down the last quivering spider. She knelt beside her fallen friend. "You killed many of them, brave Roibh," she murmured. She had some little healing skill, but her energies had been depleted by the demand of the phoenix spell.

Riocard came up beside her as Sorcha knelt to murmur a prayer for healing over Aedan and Roibh. "Well, well, it seems the Mantle underestimated you badly, firestarter," he murmured.

Eithna whirled on him as he stroked the lynx. White healing light poured over the animal from his fingertips. "They sent me to prove myself, and I will. I will be a Justiciar one day, Riocard."

He laughed as Macha came to stand with them, drawing up hideous ichor-laden bone minions from the bodies of the dead spiders. "They sent you to die, Eithna. Haven't you figured it out yet?"

Eithna stopped, placing a shaky hand on the lynx's shoulder as she righted herself. "What?"

Aedan sat up as Sorcha worked quietly over Roibh. "He's right. Don't feel badly, Eithna. They sent us all to die out here in the wilderness. Don't you see the pattern?"

Eithna stared at them both in horror. "You're wrong! They sent me to prove myself out here. When I return with the book they seek, they'll train me. They'll teach me everything I want to know. There's so much I don't, you see." She was pleading with them.

Riocard shook his head. "You've no training. I've no magic left, save for my cat. Sorcha is a monk without faith. Aedan has been a mesmer for less time than you've been a firestarter. Roibh is no longer welcome in any tavern in Lion's Arch. Macha raised a bone minion from the wrong dead body, and the man couldn't be resurrected afterward."

"Stop it," Eithna said softly. "Roibh is a good warrior, and I will be a fine elementalist when I have my training completed."

"Eithna," Riocard cupped her cheeks in his hands and forced her to meet his eyes. "Tell me I'm lying. They sent six practically useless Ascalonians into the wild lands with nearly no equipment, no money, no supplies. The Mantle sent us out here to die. Do you know what lives in the wild lands, Eithna? Dragons. Bone dragons. The Maguuma Horsemen claim much of it as their territory. You think they sent us out here to find an ancient book?"

"I doubt it even exists," Aedan said quietly in agreement.

"You've overlooked the other reason they want us dead, aside from our uselessness," Macha said carelessly. "We're descended of the Six Heroes of Ascalon. The settlement grows in numbers, and threatens the rule of the White Mantle by sheer volume of people. More come from Ascalonian lands daily by virtue of the gate our Prince gave his life to open, and by virtue of the courage of our fathers. Do you think it's coincidental that none of our fathers survived in Kryta for very long? The Mantle fears a threat to its power, and takes steps to eliminate it."

Eithna sank to the ground at Roibh's side. Sorcha had covered him in blankets and rested beside him. Eithna gave her a despairing look. "They're lying, Sorcha. You'd know if they sent us out here on a fool's errand, hoping we'd die."

Sorcha regarded her solemnly, her blue eyes serene. "I do not believe the White Mantle could be so evil. And yet what Riocard has said has merit. And Macha is right about the settlement."

Eithna's eyes filled as Riocard knelt beside her. "I am not trying to be unkind, Eithna. Take the veils from your eyes. We're likely to die out here. Build a fire, and I'll find us something to eat. You need to restore your energies, and so do Macha and Sorcha. Aedan and Roibh will need to eat to rebuild their strength." He laid a gentle hand on her arm. "We've been sent to die, Eithna. It's up to us whether we do or not."

* * *

3.

Aedan sat quietly beside Eithna. Restless as usual, she fidgeted with the sharp stick at the fire's edge, drawing small sigils in the air with the point of it. Without the concentration of her magicks, it was simply practice. She sighed, looking over to the pallet of soft green leaves where Roibhilin lay, still wearied and wounded. Sorcha's smaller healings hadn't been able to dispel the poison completely, only hold it at bay. Eithna wondered angrily at the monk's impeccable calm, even when her healings had done Roibh so little good.

"How do you channel it?" Aedan's voice interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to him. The mesmer's bright blue eyes were shielded by his cautious, introspective nature.

"Channel what? The fire?" Eithna leaned one cheek on her updrawn knees, watching him. "It's awful trying to talk to you through that mask, as pretty as it is." She smiled, hoping her words would give no offense. He was hard to know, and she found it disconcerting to talk to a pair of eyes in a bright blue feathered mask.

Aedan lowered the mask to his lap and met her sparkling emerald gaze with a softer blue one of his own. "Yes, the fire. I have," he hesitated, then continued, "I have trouble with my focus. I know the right things to say, the right gestures. Well, some of them. But my spells are scattered, and I can feel it. So how do you channel better?"

Eithna picked up a small warm stone from the edge of the fire and centered it in her palm. "Can you sense energy?" She looked up at Aedan. "When others use it, I mean. Can you feel the flow of it?"

He nodded. "Yes. Why?"

"Open your mind's eye, then, mesmer. Watch and see if you can feel how I change my focus. Alright?" She smiled at him, leveling her palm between them. The stone rested, quiescent for now. This was an old training trick her mother had taught her when she'd first noted Eithna's attunement to fire.

Aedan narrowed his gaze on the stone. "Alright. I'm watching."

Eithna placed her empty hand flat against his. "Watch with more than your eyes. Open your magicks and feel." She guided him, helping him focus with the small centering touch of her fingers against his palm, and then concentrated on the stone when she could feel him watching deeply. The first scattering of her energies over the stone was careless, directionless, like spitting into a high wind. The stone glowed in scattershot places faintly, and then cooled immediately. Eithna held the pouring of her magicks open, then narrowed the beam slowly so Aedan could watch. She could feel his concentration just under her own. Fire was not his to call, but he could feel the way she tightened up the stream of energy so that it focused on one small crack in the stone. Eithna held her breath, and blew out slowly as she ceased the flow, mentally picturing the river of flame pouring from her going coolly black. She released Aedan's hand and sat back, picking up a small knot of bread to nibble. That her mother had taught her as well. Eat after casting, always.

Aedan nodded. "Will that exercise work for me as well? I could see exactly how you channeled energy that time. Thank you."

Eithna smiled. "That was the most fun I've had since we left Lion's Arch, Aedan, so you're welcome. I think that exercise should work for you, same as it does me. My mother is a Water attunement, so she used ice or a goblet to practice with, but a warm stone or a torch usually work for me. Find something that resonates to your magick, and it should work as a focus object."

He smiled back at her, his lips broad and firm. Eithna blushed slightly, realizing how lovely a mouth he had. She'd never noticed before, with most of his features hidden by his mask. "Thank you." He rose, and left her to her own thoughts once more.

She sat quietly and finished the bread, then moved to the other side of the fire where Roibhilin slept. "Sorcha," Eithna said softly, looking for the familiar quiet presence at Roibh's side. The tiny monk was nowhere in sight. Eithna frowned, resting the inside of one wrist against Roibh's forehead. He was warm again, and she took a sighing breath of release. The quiet was interrupted again by a nearly inaudible broken sound, filled with pain. Eithna crept away from the fire, following the small noise.

* * *

4.

The small blonde monk was curved into a knot at the base of a tree. Her face was hidden in her hands, and she was sobbing quietly. Eithna crouched behind her, waiting. When no break came in the harshly muffled noises, she patted Sorcha's shoulder gently.

"Go away," Sorcha answered, her voice miserably sniffly.

"No. Why are you crying?"

Sorcha gave a damp laugh and lifted her face. It was ravaged, twisted with pain. Eithna drew a breath and laid her hand gently against Sorcha's back in sympathy. She'd never seen the other woman so unmasked before. "Don't," Sorcha whispered. "I'm not worth your empathy. Roibh is going to die because I've no faith left."

"Don't you say that!" Eithna answered sharply. "You can't let him die, Sorcha."

Sorcha's lips twisted again and she buried her face in her own small hands. "I can't stop it, Eithna. Faith is power, and I've none of either. I've no more healing skill than you."

Eithna pounded her fists against the monk's shoulder lightly. "Then you'd better find yours, Sorcha, because if he dies, so do you."

"You love him that much, do you?" Sorcha's voice was tight. "Well, I pity you, mage."

Eithna snorted. "No, bomanta, not like that. His mother and mine carried us together, and he's more my brother than anything else. Jealous, are you?"

Sorcha's head lifted, and when her gaze met Eithna's, the elementalist drew a sharp breath at the heat and despair there. "How do you think I feel knowing I can't save him when I…" Sorcha stopped abruptly then, dropping her chin against her forearm.

"When you love him." Eithna finished it for her, patting her shoulder uncertainly. "Then find your faith for him. I'm told love gives you strength, Sorcha. Don't act the cladhaire; do what Roibh needs and stop your sniveling in the bushes. He'd have no patience for that were he wakeful." Eithna tapped the blonde's shoulder harder. "Get up and tend my brother. Don't you let him die, Sorcha."

Slow, derisive applause came from behind them. Eithna leapt to her feet, whirling, and Sorcha buried her face to hide the drying tracks of salt on her cheeks. The necromancer leaned against a tree, clapping slowly.

"Tremendously moving," she said dryly. "A firetosser tossing threats about to motivate the silent little monk with the big rippling secret. Touching."

Eithna gritted her teeth. "Something you wanted, Macha?" She tipped her chin at the lanky woman defiantly.

"Oh," Macha shrugged. "I was pondering my eventual death at the hands of the Maguuma clan and hopeful they'd not loot my corpse and raise a bone minion from my body after. I find that thought distasteful. Oh, and Riocard has brought supper back. I'd considered giving him a scare by making it talk to him, but nothing scares that man. If you want food, you'll have to come get it. And preferably cook it." She turned on one long leg, tapped her bootheel against the moss, and sauntered back toward camp.

"Sorcha," Eithna said quietly. "Do whatever you have to, but heal Roibh. You understand."

Sorcha's face lifted to hers, blank again, her eyes serene and expressionless once more. "May the Unseen Ones protect him." She melted into the riot of dark leafy plants and was gone. Eithna fought the temptation to bang her head against the nearest tree and sighed loudly.

* * *

5.

Roibhilin paused, leaning against a wide tree. Eithna laid a hand against his back gently. "We'll stop for the night, Roibh."

He shook his head grimly. "No, I just need a breath, Eithna. We haven't covered much ground today. We need to keep moving, and we need to go faster. Sorcha says there's an old marketplace that might sell some of the supplies we need. We're running out of time." His color was underlaid with the grey of fatigue.

Eithna set her jaw. "You're tired. You can't fight like that."

Roibh grinned over a shooting spark of pain, ignoring it. "I can fight when I'm too drunk to see, Eithna. You should know that better than most. If that's true, I can fight poisoned too. Don't worry, I won't let the bad horsies get you."

Eithna threw back her head and laughed. "I'd like to see them get past my firestorm, Roibh. You hold them long enough, I'll fry them."

Aedan leaned closer to her for a moment. "They might make a good stew afterward."

Eithna looked at him in shock, then saw the dancing light in his eyes and joined Roibh in laughter. The pause had done him good, for the graying had lightened again. She smiled with relief, and shot a worried look at Sorcha. The monk had taken to walking silently just behind Roibh, sending small draughts of light healing over him from time to time, but her eyes were vacant and her face expressionless. Eithna had noted that Sorcha's time with Roibh was limited again to small healing spells; other than that, the woman seemed to prefer her own company again. Eithna wondered idly if she'd imagined the strange conversation she'd had with Sorcha, or if the monk had changed her mind.

Ruari whined loudly just ahead of them. Riocard gazed intently at his lynx. It was almost as if they were talking in the silence of the long look. Eithna felt a shudder of magick pass between them, and took a few long strides toward the pair. Riocard looked at her evenly.

"Drop back, Eithna. Protect Roibh and Sorcha."

"I can fight close, if something's on the wind, Riocard. Tell me." She had gone tense, and her fingers curled into the proper shape for attuning herself closely with Fire.

He shook his head, golden braids trembling under his feathers. "Nothing definite. But it's quiet suddenly. Ruari noticed it too."

Eithna closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the flow of energies around them. Something wasn't right, but she hadn't the training to define it. She drew back and grounded herself, nodding at the ranger. "Yes, something's wrong. I'll pull Macha and Aedan in close with us. She's useful there at least."

Riocard frowned at her. "There's more to her than sharp tongue, Eithna. Don't judge her too harshly."

Eithna shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I'll tell them to be on guard too. Roibh is not up to fighting, no matter what he says. And Aedan's developed some skill since we left Lion's Arch." She grinned slyly. "He might surprise the Mantle as well."

Riocard chuckled then, that unexpected sound of music in his laughter. Eithna smiled at him, thinking how at odds his laughter was with his somber affect, and wondered if he'd ever told the lynx a joke. She let out a startled giggle at that thought, and turned to find Macha and Aedan.

The ranger stopped her. "You laughed." He smiled at her.

"Yes." Eithna's smile deepened, her cheeks dimpling slightly. "I found myself thinking about whether you'd ever told your lynx a joke."

Riocard roared with laughter as she slipped away to warn Macha and Aedan. She found the necromancer staring broodily at a pile of bleached bones tangled in the high, soft grass.

* * *

6.

"Equine, and yet not," Macha said unhelpfully to Aedan.

Eithna nudged closer to them, and stared down. She'd no feel for bones whatsoever. "Are they old?" They glistened with dew in the lush verdant backdrop of the rainforest. The Wilds were cruel and brimming with beautiful death, she'd noticed in their travels. Poisonous spiders and killer plants abounded; and yet it was the most beautiful place she'd ever been. Still, the bones looked out of place.

Macha gave her a long look. "Not so old I can't use them, firespinner. They're only months old."

"Months?" Aedan queried, frowning. "But they're, uh." He stopped, searching for a word.

"Naked," Macha grinned. "Hot moist jungle with a ton of predatory plants and critters makes short work of anything that sits still. Dead things are no different. Decay is rapid here. Haven't you noticed it? The Wilds consumes things and spits back nothing but bones in a hurry."

Eithna shuddered at the tone and content of her words. "I hadn't, actually, Macha." She gave the bones another look. "What animal are they from?"

Macha sighed with mock patience. "As I said, they're equine, and yet not. See here how this forearm bone is short, and not so heavy? Compare it to this long leg bone here. Note the peculiar markings here and here. This is definitely equine. The forearm bone is human."

"Mixed up bones?" Aedan said hopefully.

Macha shook her head. "Maguuma clan. Viciously territorial, and built like your friend Roibh if he were half horse."

"It's true?" Eithna said softly. "I had thought that a rumor; that the Maguuma were just very accomplished riders."

Macha laughed. "Oh, yes, quite accomplished. A human torso and an equine body. They're intelligent, fast, and strong, but they don't have magicks other than a warrior's bag of tricks." She paused and grinned. "Aedan here can turn them weak to lessen their speed and strength, and I can rot the flesh from their long bones. They'll make fine, strong bone minions. Starting with this one."

Eithna shivered. "We need all the help we can get."

Macha gave her an arch look. "Even from the dead, fastidious girl?"

Eithna stared back at her evenly. "I've no qualms about that."

Macha threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, but you do. It's crawling off your skin. But no mind. Watch. You'll get accustomed to it."

Eithna couldn't walk away, nor look away. She watched in fascinated horror as the bones on the ground began to twitch and knit together into a gnarled, knobby creation. It formed from the feet up in a bizarre dance under Macha's low husky crooning song, which hummed and buzzed just behind Eithna's ears. Her skin crackled with the magicks swirling, and she stepped back instinctively. The energies felt foreign and cold to her, and the scent of them breathed death into the air. Eithna rubbed her hands up and down her forearms and watched the bone minion take form and stagger to its place just behind Macha.

Aedan whispered into her ear. "I could feel her focus change too. She swept it over the bones and up in a spiral, and the bones danced to her tune. It was amazing; did you feel it?"

She nodded agreement, stilling her fingers forcefully. "Aye, she's strong."

Macha winked at her. "There, didn't cost you a bit to say it either. Thank you." The reanimated bones shambled off behind her as she walked away.

* * *

7.

Riocard beckoned to Eithna. Ruari stood beside him, staring intently into a thick stand of trees. "He senses something," he murmured as she leaned closer. "I'm blind to it, but he's after something."

Eithna opened all six of her senses wide and followed the line of the lynx's gaze. Something glistened with energy behind the trees. "The pattern," she whispered back to Riocard. "The trees have been planted in a pattern. And there's something there. Something heavy. What do you see when you open your mind's eye, Riocard?"

He closed his fingers around her wrist, strength restrained with respect for her smaller bones. "Nothing." His voice was harsh. "I see nothing. Have I not told you all my magicks are gone save what I share with Ruari?"

Eithna shook her head. "You're wrong. You've just shut your mind's eye apurpose. We need to see whatever that is in that spiral of trees. We need it."

Aedan had stopped and came closer to them, sniffing the breeze. "Something smells good."

Eithna grinned. "You smell it, I see it. It's something big, Aedan."

He nodded at her and called to the others. Roibhilin was fatigued again, even with Sorcha's small bursts of clear blue energy sliding into his skin and bones at odd intervals. Eithna frowned. He was no better. She saw the same in Macha's assessing eyes.

"You want to chase something the rest of us can't see, hm?" Macha leaned against a tree, her bone minion stumbling to a rest beside her. The thing still gave Eithna the horrors, but she'd been grateful of its assistance the day before with the nest of tiny infant spiders. Small they'd been, but poisonous just the same. The bone creature had been impervious, stamping the baby spiders into dust before they could reach the Ascalonians.

Eithna nodded. "Aedan and I can sense it. Whatever it is, it could help us. It's radiant with power." She smiled. "And it's magick that feels good to me."

"Might be a trap," Riocard offered. He crouched, solemn, and traded looks with Ruari. The lynx snuffled at his neck and crowded closer to him.

Eithna shook her head. "Might be, but we need help. This might be help. Aedan and I will go; you four stay here."

Roibhilin laughed, sliding to a seated position under a thick spread of branches. Sorcha laid one hand lightly on his chest and fed him small sips of water from her waterskin. "It's little I could do to help you in any case, noisy girl. I'm dying, so I'll stay here and do so quietly while you find your prize."

Eithna's face tightened, hearing truth in his words. "Don't you dare, Roibh," she snapped at him, then turned her eyes to Sorcha. "And don't you let him, monk. Don't you dare let him die when you love him."

Roibh's smile was twisted. "It's a poor choice to fall in love with the doomed, little sister. I'm sure our Sorcha has more sense than that. I'll try not to die while you're occupied. Best I can do." His lips tightened with pain for a moment, Sorcha's fingers spreading glimmering layers of blue light over him as he sighed with relief.

Eithna steeled herself, and turned to Aedan, signaling him with a nod. They opened their senses wide, and she attuned herself to Fire once more, ready for attackers should the tree spiral turn out to be a trap. Ruari moved off the path with them, rubbing against Eithna's side. She smiled, stroking fingers through his fur lightly as he rumbled with a purr. The lynx steered her away from a wildly beautiful explosion of magenta flowers, and she pulled at Aedan's arm to warn him as well.

"I wanted to pick one," Aedan said breathily. His cheeks were flushed. "They're amazing."

Eithna took a small knot of bread from her pouch and heaved it into the profusion of velvety looking blooms. The scent of them was hot and heavily intoxicating as they rustled for a moment, then clashed together, smashing at each other. The bread knot vanished. Aedan gulped.

"Carnivorous too?" he guessed. "How did you know?"

"Ruari." Eithna indicated the lynx, who sniffed at the ground. "He senses things I can't. Follow him."

She kept her receptive hand lightly on Ruari's jeweled collar as he led them around the first turn of the spiral, then stopped abruptly. Moments later, Riocard joined them. Eithna was surprised at the depth of sensitivity between cat and man. It was as if the lynx had called him, and she wondered what the pet sensed that it needed its partner. Ruari let out a soft yowl and then slid smoothly around the next turn of the spiral. Eithna's heart beat faster. It had grown dark under the heavy weave of leaves; small patches of sun made spotty patterns on the underbrush. It was as if they walked through a misty tunnel of violent green. Something felt wrong now. When they crept around the final tight turn of the spiral, Eithna suddenly knew why.

* * *

8.

"Danu preserve us," Eithna whispered. The massive tree rose from the ground to tower over the four of them, and its energy was a thick green haze over the entire clearing at the spiral's center. It pulsed and brimmed with life; as if it were the very font of teeming vitality this corner of the wild lands exuded. She narrowed her mind's eye as a branch lashed at them.

"It's not happy to see us," Aedan whispered to her, and she could feel him gearing up. He laid a protective enchantment on the tree that would damage it should it cast any hostile spells.

"Who dares invade my sacred land?" The tree's voice was deep and resonant. It hurt the very bones in Eithna's head. "Invade no more, humans. You'll die and feed the roots of my plants."

"We're sorry," Eithna whispered. "We'll leave."

"Too late!" the tree boomed, and its magick swirled around her. She cried out, pulling a huge stone from the earth, ripping it from the roots of the tree, and hurled it flaming into the tree's branches. The scream of agony reverberated around her. Riocard had dropped to a crouch, and she whirled, endowing his arrows with additional Fire power. One after the other struck the tree, but it struck back. Aedan was swept off his feet by a vine-infested branch, and thrown forcefully across the clearing. The tree lashed out again, catching Eithna across the chest, tearing at her skin with thorns. She screamed, calling the Phoenix from the air to burn the vicious tree, her vision gone as her head was viciously slammed by a heavy branch. She could hear Aedan's breathing near her, and crawled to him, shaking with the booming paincries of the massive tree. Sobbing, she ran her hands over Aedan, using her one small healing skill to help him. He stood, and pulled her to her feet, whirling her away from branches until she was dizzy. Eithna lurched; then smooth fur rippled under her, keeping her from sagging. The steady thunk thunk thunk of Riocard's arrows assured her of his wellbeing, and she marshaled her inner forces once more to strike out. The vitality of the massive tree was fading; she could feel it ebb. Even so, it struck out as she called a rain of fire down on it, one massive armlike branch clubbing her across the chest. She felt the splintering of her bones like a burst of lightning searing her, and went down on her knees, hands bracing her against the earth. Eithna could barely catch her breath now; it came and went in shallow gasps that hardly fulfilled her hunger for air. The tree's final death shook through her in one final agonal burst of magick that ripped tears from her eyes. She let the sobs come, both pain and grief. The tree had been beautiful as it had been deadly, and something unique and lovely was gone.

"Eithna." Riocard's strong hands cupped her shoulders gently. "Can you stand? I've no healing skill, but I can lift you if you can't."

She turned blind eyes toward his voice and touch. Only her mind's eye remained viable. "Wait. Wait." Eithna crawled toward something glistening and green in her third eye's view.

"What are you after?" Riocard moved with her, Ruari bracketing her on the other side.

"It's here," she muttered, falling into the split in the massive trunk of the tree. Her fingers closed around an emerald the size of her doubled fists, and she clutched at it with both hands, pulling hard. It came free into her numbing fingers with a wet sucking sound. "It's the Heart of the Forest," she murmured, cradling it to her belly. The bright flare of magicks inside it calmed her pain slightly, but the next breath she attempted to draw sent her over into the black of unconsciousness.

* * *

9.

Eithna's hands were warm, covered in something soothing and rough. She murmured, trying to turn, but she was held still. Cool hands smoothed down her skin and over her belly, and she winced even at that gentle touch. Her eyes opened against her will. The last thing she remembered was agonizing pain, and she didn't want to know it again. She lay draped over the ranger, her head against his shoulder while the big cat stood protectively at his side. Heat flushed her cheeks; she was humiliated by the passivity of her position, and struggled to right herself. Sorcha's hands smoothed over her gently.

"Don't move, please," the monk said quietly. "I've somehow managed to get your ribs to knit up a bit; please don't undo it by thrashing about."

"Thank you," Eithna gritted out between clenched teeth. The stunning pain was nearly paralyzing and she stopped trying to move. She looked up at Riocard, his face impassive. "I'm sorry for the imposition," she said, formally. Her injuries embarrassed her—to be seen as weak and needy was beyond the scope of her imagination.

One side of his mouth kicked up, and she heard him chuckle. "Well, I'm certainly glad you thought to apologize for being mortally wounded. What treasure did you dive for that nearly put your splintered bones through your lung?"

Eithna's fingers twitched around the emerald. Apparently, her fellow travelers hadn't found it in her pocket, nor thought to pull her fist from the pocket where the jewel lay clenched in her hand. She remembered it singing, and closed her eyes for a moment, reaching out for its magick with her own energies. It felt cool and alive, swirling with the life force of the wild Maguuma jungle around them.

"Something I think Sorcha desperately needs," she whispered, clenching the jewel in her fist tightly as she drew her hand from her pocket. "The reminder that life is what her faith is about." Eithna cupped her other hand over the tiny monk's weary cheek, and raised her chin. "Sorcha," she whispered. Something beyond herself was urging her on, whispering just under the rumble of her thoughts as she lifted the jewel into the light filtered through the trees.

Suddenly there was a song swirling through the small clearing of their temporary camp, and light glittered verdantly over every surface. Sorcha's body was limned in it as she raised her arms. Eithna sagged against Riocard's strength, the jewel resting in her open palm as it lifted Sorcha off her feet, twirling her in a breeze that stirred no leaf. Sorcha cried out, her blonde hair dappled with bright green light, and her soft blue eyes stared at nothing. She glowed with the magick of the stone, and a wide smile slowly lifted her mouth into an incredulously joyful curve.

"Unbelievable," Riocard murmured, his fingers warm against Eithna's bruised arm. "How did you know?"

"The stone told me," she whispered back, "and I don't think it's done yet."

As she spoke, Sorcha fell lightly to the soft carpet of the thick grass, and rolled, giggling to herself. Riocard arched an eyebrow. None of them had heard her laugh before. Then his face twisted as the stone turned to him, filling him with its light. Eithna watched as his eyes glowed an even brighter green, and Ruari yowled at the top of his lungs. The swirling emerald glitter danced over cat and man, enveloping them, and Eithna lay passive in the middle of the storm. When it ended, the emerald was cool again on her palm, but quiet. She could still feel the residual magicks dancing through the small glen, forcing thousands of buds into full bloom.

Sorcha rolled over and propped her head on her hand. She sent a long look at Eithna, and opened her palm. A clear, steady column of blue light grew there, and she rolled again, maintaining it as her body logrolled across the grass to where Roibh lay, barely aware. Eithna watched the monk lift her hands, balance the heavy column of glittery blue energy, then send it crashing over Roibh's torso. He grunted under the force of it, then lay still. Sorcha smiled, skimming one hand over him, all but drowning him in a blanket of healing energy.

"I haven't been able to dispel poison since the Charr brutalized me," Sorcha murmured, lifting her face. "Whatever else that stone did, it cleansed me of that. I can heal again. It wasn't faith that I lacked after all. It was forgiveness."

"How can you forgive them that?" Eithna watched, amazed as Roibh's colour improved by the second. Lines of pain were smoothing away before her eyes.

Sorcha laughed. "Oh, it's not them I forgave, Eithna. Twas myself, for living when everyone else died, and for living marked with shame for what they'd done to me. And now for you."

Eithna steeled herself, nodding. "Can you help me?" She met Sorcha's eyes entreatingly. The stone, active, had held the pain at bay, but it had returned tenfold since. She was nearly at the limit of her endurance. Sorcha's hands danced over her, and Eithna closed her eyes. She swore she could nearly hear bones reknitting, bruises reabsorbing, swelling fading, and muscle untearing. She sighed with relief as the cool breeze of the healing spell worked her over. Sorcha's healing had a delicate clove-like scent that soothed her. She brushed her hands over her legs and face, and smiled.

"Thank you, Sorcha."

"It heals psychic injury," Riocard said quietly. "That's what the myth of the Heart of the Forest says. The stone can heal emotional scars and psychic injuries which would otherwise be permanent. You found a myth, Eithna."

"Did it heal yours?" Eithna asked him, looking up.

His smile was slow, and tinged with something darkly masculine. Eithna suddenly realized that she was fully healed, but had yet to move off his lap. She blushed heavily, and scrambled off him as he burst into laughter. "Oh yes, yes, it truly did. Let's find out for sure."

He rose, snapped his fingers, murmured something, then moved in a blur across the clearing. Macha grinned at him, amused. "Found your dodge again, did you, ranger? Speed's not everything, you know."

Riocard laughed. "Oh, I think I've a good deal more than speed." He moved in a lightning blur of speed toward Eithna, kissed her mouth once, then moved away again before she could speak. "Here's to the Heart of the Forest, and the long of eye caster that found it." He lifted his waterskin in a mock toast, and drank deep. Eithna watched him with a sense of wonder. He'd not said what it was that had been lifted from him, but clearly something had. The pall over him was gone; the caustic solemnity replaced with a merriment Eithna hadn't known him capable of.

* * *

10.

The bright emerald glimmered in Eithna's pocket as they moved ever deeper into the wild lands. Spiders they'd met aplenty, and the day before, a party of trolls. Roibh, Danu bless, had recovered completely and grinned like the old Roibh she remembered as he split the largest troll in half neatly with his sword. Riocard had called beasts from the trees around them to join the fight, and the trolls had gone to dust under the ferocity of ranger and warrior. They'd barely needed her firestorm, but had sorely needed Sorcha's help afterward. She'd knitted them back up with a mere blink and gesture for each, and gone about foraging for edible leaves and berries as though it had been a small thing. Her healing skills had returned in full force, and each night found her in quiet contemplation by the fire. Eithna envied her the silent joy in life she'd found, and the less silent joy Roibh had discovered in her company.

She sighed and stroked the smooth crystal, petting it. Something was still off. The wrongness that Ruari had first sensed grew stronger by the day, and even now Eithna felt a vague itch at the back of her neck, as though she were being watched. The lynx yowled softly and rubbed against her knee.

She laughed and stroked his head. "I know, Ruari, I can feel it too." The great cat had come to accept her company and her touch, and she drew comfort in the petting of his warm, silky fur as she lay thinking at night. More and more she'd come to the conclusion that Riocard's thoughts had been correct—they'd been sent to die by the Mantle. That thought burned in her belly more than she thought it should. She'd been their errand girl, done as she was told, and couldn't have been a better citizen of Lion's Arch. And still they seemed to want her dead. She sighed heavily and heard a faint echo rush back to her from ahead, overlaid with the thick heaviness of running water.

"We just might get a bath," Macha said lazily, pointing ahead to the high waterfall muffling her words. Eithna's breath caught in her throat. In all of Ascalon, there had been nothing so beautiful as this. The setting sun streamed down on the whiteheads of the falling water as it rippled into an enormous pool below, then flowed off into a river brimming with fish. The rocks on either side of the waterfall glistened with moisture, and a heavy, warm mist hung over them all the way down to the pool under the falls.

"I can feel all that water on my skin now," Eithna sighed. "All adventurous, but still all girl. I want a bath more than I want to eat." She exchanged grins with Macha as they hurried to catch Riocard and Roibhilin.

"We're for a bath," Macha informed them. "And since we're girls, we get to go first. You three keep watch. Come, Sorcha." She took the monk's delicate hand in the long scarred length of her fingers.

Roibh laughed. "Oh, no, Sorcha's with me." He grinned down at her, tugging her from Macha's grasp. "We'll go first and the four of you stand guard." He crashed through the thick brush and they could hear Sorcha's high giggle and then splashing. The sound faded.

Aedan rolled his eyes. "Now, why do I think that when we get through this patch of blooming shrubs they'll be nowhere in sight?"

Macha grinned at him. "Because you're very perceptive for a mesmer. Well, I could care less if they have their privacy or they don't. I'm going in. If I have to wait one more minute to feel clean all over I'll go mad from the sound of that water." She vanished just around a bend.

Aedan sighed. "I'll keep watch over her, and get a turn when she comes out." He followed her into the thicket.

Riocard arched a brow at Eithna as they broke onto the beach. "You're not going to dive in and say the hell with staying together so we're safer? Not like you at all, Eithna. You're usually so reckless."

She shrugged and began picking up armloads of driftwood off the sand, piling it up high in a steepling pattern. "I suppose that's something I've learned from you, ranger. Patience." She adjusted the balance of the wood, then reached into it, closing her eyes to feel the heat buried inside each piece, waiting to burst into life. With a soft single word and gesture, she brought it slow and easy, wanting the fire to burn hot and long. They'd have something to cook over it if she was any judge of the lynx's restless pacing and sniffing. Eithna looked back over her shoulder, then startled. She hadn't heard Riocard come up behind her.

"If Ruari finds aught worth eating, there's a blaze for cooking it," she said softly, then sat in the sand by the fire. "I'm wanting my bath when the others return. Shouldn't be much longer."

His lips twisted with amusement as he sat beside her, his longer thigh brushing hers. "Are you that innocent, Eithna?"

She looked away, shaking her head. "May they find joy of each other, that's all." Her face burned. Sorcha and Roibh hadn't been hard to guess at, but the quietly handsome Aedan and the cynical but striking Macha she found hard to see together.

Riocard laughed, stripping skin from a small rabbit Ruari had just dropped in his lap. His long knife moved swiftly, dressing the animal for their dinner. "Of that I'm certain," he grinned. He set the meat to roasting over a long stick and tossed gobbets of it raw to the lynx who growled with satisfaction.

"What wound was it the Heart of the Forest closed in you?" she asked quietly, watching the flames as the lynx brought Riocard another rabbit. The hypnotic pattern of them was soothing and comforting in a way that little else in her life had ever been.

He stiffened, but answered. "I watched the Mantle murder my mother. They never knew I'd seen, and there was but little I could do. They're not the beneficent guides they seem, Eithna. They're fanatical killers, and they'll stamp out anything that threatens their power. You remember the journey of the Eye?"

Eithna nodded. It was an annual event, and only those truly honoured were chosen to accompany the Eye on its journey as it scanned every Krytan villager for any hint of power. Those chosen were sent on for training. Many times she'd wanted to be one of the chosen, but every year she'd stood at her mother's side and been passed over. Powerless, she'd been relegated to errand girl.

"Why do you suppose you never again see one single person the Eye chooses, Eithna?" Riocard's soft deep voice came from the deepening shadows beside her as he handed her another stick of meat. The lynx chewed noisily on her other side, then rested his chin in her lap with a satisfied purr.

"Because they're being trained?" She didn't sound sure, nor did she feel that way.

Riocard shook his head. "No, Eithna, because they're dead."

* * *

11.

"Are you sure?" she whispered, turning her head to look at him. The fire made his face an interesting pattern of lit planes and dark shadows, and out of it his green eyes were quiet and full of truth.

"More sure than I'd like to be. Why do you think I managed to get myself attached to Justiciar Hablion's group, and then disgraced myself enough to be let go? I needed proof, Eithna. I never expected to live long enough to deliver it anywhere, but now I think we just might."

"Deliver it?" Eithna was incredulous. "To whom? Or where? Who will help us if all you say is the truth?"

He shook his head. "Not now. If I find a way to contact them, you'll know. For now, we search for The Mantle's book and see what else there is to find in this forest. You've found one legend already—perhaps there are more."

She watched him, looking for any hope in his eyes, and found it. "Perhaps," she agreed. She turned the stick idly, and checked her meat. The rabbit was steaming, and beginning to brown nicely. The scent of it rose to her nostrils teasingly, and she sighed. "Why is it that when you're waiting for food to cook you get hungrier by the second?" She smiled at Riocard and held the stick over the fire again. Fat sizzled as it dropped from the meat into the fire, making a thick spread of heady scent over the sand. The moon was rising, and Eithna leaned back, tilting her head to watch it.

Riocard broke a piece of meat off his stick, passing it from hand to hand to cool it a bit, then held it out to her lips. "Here, eat." He smiled, nudging the soft tender morsel against her mouth. "Let me know if it's good, because I hate underdone meat."

Eithna laughed. "Oh, so now I'm to be your taster, King Riocard," she said teasingly, and sucked the meat from the tips of his fingers. She closed her eyes, chewing contentedly. "Oh." She opened them again, looking at him with a grin. "I think I'll have to test another piece."

His grin was even wider. "Greedy. Now I know it's good. Watch yours, or you'll burn it." He tore a piece off with his teeth, hissing at the heat. "Very," he said through the last of it. "I'm going to turn in my bow for a cookpot."

Eithna laughed. "I think Ruari might object."

He leaned forward then, ruffling the lynx's collar fur with one hand. Eithna startled as the movement brought him closer to her. He smelled of the forest, clean and warm and full of life. She half turned toward him, and looked up, startled more by the heat in his green eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and she laid her hand over his on Ruari's warm neck. She could barely hear over the sound of her pulse suddenly thudding in her ears.

A heavy sound of something crashing out of the forest behind them split them apart, and Riocard's bow was in his hands with arrow nocked even as Ruari took off yowling into the shrubline. Riocard was right behind him, and Eithna followed, scepter scooped off the ground and dinner dropped into the fire. The cat screamed then, a sound full of anger and pain, and she ran toward it, near panic. She'd never heard him like that before.

She broke through the trees to find Ruari all but trampled beneath the hooves of the biggest horse she'd ever seen, topped with the body of a man. Riocard's arrows lodged one after the other in the massive torso, and Eithna gasped. It seemed to feel no pain whatsoever. She hummed, attuning herself to Fire, and brought a stream of burning rain down on it. The cat screamed again, challengingly, and leapt at the horse-man's throat. Its fangs tore at flesh, sending blood to mix with the fire, and the scent of burning flesh and hair rose sickeningly over the space between the trees. Riocard's bow thunked heavily again, and the horseman fell, arrow lodged in its left eye. As it began to twitch in its death throes, however, a second horseman and then a third broke through the trees, trumpeting and calling out angrily.

Riocard took a long breath and gave a call that sounded like a trumpet. Eithna seconded it with a long high scream full of fear. She had one more spell before she needed to rest a moment, and Riocard's dodging had begun to slow. Ruari lay to one side where the horseman had tossed him as it died. They were overmatched badly.

* * *

12.

Roibhilin broke through the trees from the beach at a dead run, long thick legs eating up ground easily. He gave a horrifying yell and leapt over Eithna as she dropped into a crouch. She was stunned at the easy power and fluid grace of her friend. She ran by one of the horsemen, trying to dodge its hooves and sword, and saw the Phoenix in her mind's eye, calling it from the ether with a heavy burst of burning energy. Macha and Aedan skidded into the clearing, Sorcha not far behind her. As the Phoenix set the second horseman on fire, Eithna slid under its hooves and rolled to the other side of the clearing, coming to a stop by Riocard. He crouched, providing cover for her recovery as she cursed her lack of training. She'd only two good offensive spells, and a quick light flare spell if things were desperate, but she lacked the energy to bring them off repeatedly. Macha gave a fierce howl, and the bone minions attacked the third horseman even as she brought another dripping ichor out of the body of their fallen comrade. Sorcha's beams of turquoise light flew over the bushes, spreading healing and protection. One of the horsewarriors screamed out as poison rent his flesh and brought it rotting in clots off his torso, and the other cried out as Aedan whispered something to the air that made him stumble and miss his swing at Roibh's head. Ranger and warrior concentrated on the third horseman as Macha brought down the second with a burst of shuddering chill. Roibh came up bleeding with a flurry of concentrated swings of his sword, and Riocard nocked another arrow, this one bristling with magick. The arrow struck true, and the third horseman fell. Macha brewed a pair of bone fiends from the last two corpses and fell back into the moist earth, panting. Aedan sank beside her, shaken with the abuse of his resources. Sorcha's fingers conjured rest and healing out of thin air for them all before she too sat, exhausted. Roibh's burbling energy faded as the battle madness drained from him at last.

Eithna's fingers sank into Ruari's fur as she tried to call up her one small healing skill. He lay there too still as Riocard sank to one knee next to her. He hissed and purred, nearly sounding like a cat himself, and bright white light burst from his hands over the lynx, who trembled under the healing. Eithna's eyes blurred with tears.

"A very brave lynx," she whispered, stroking his head as his muscles filled with life again. Riocard nodded, concentrating on bringing Ruari back completely.

"That was refreshing," Macha observed dryly. "Thank you much for the excitement."

Riocard sent her a withering look. "Had we all discussed standing watch and taking turns at the bathing, we'd not have been surprised to the degree we were. Thankfully Eithna and I were on our guard."

Eithna nodded. "And thankfully Ruari's ears are better than ours still." She burst out laughing. "And now we've not had dinner or a bath, and I'm filthy with rolling under great sweaty horses and starved as well."

Riocard laughed with her. "Come then. These four can sit and stand guard and we'll find places to get good and clean. Macha, perhaps you'll find something for dinner as ours is in the fire at present?" He sent her a teasing look. Macha was notoriously squeamish about dinner preparations despite her profession.

Roibh bellowed with laughter. "As likely as the moon is to rise in the morning, that," he said, throwing an arm around Sorcha. "Well, as we took all the time up, it's only fair that you two get a turn now." He slanted a teasing look at Eithna, who blushed, cursing her fairer complexion.

Sorcha paused as Eithna and Riocard set off for the pool. Her eye had caught something just out of reach in a shrub. A canvas bag, heavy for her small frame and smelling strongly of horses and blood. She dragged it behind her, following Roibh back to the temporary camp.

* * *

13.

Roibh took point, hacking at the overgrown riot of plants. Eithna heard him swear, and laughed softly. They'd seen another pair of jungle trolls that morning, and had left nothing but bones, which Macha had put to good use. She'd been showing Aedan how to knit up a bone monster of his own, which had made Eithna's skin crawl because it had happened in slow motion. The feeling of wrongness hadn't gone away at all; if anything it had worsened. It was with her constantly now, like an ache behind her ears that never quite went away. She'd grown snappish with it, fit company for nobody except Ruari.

Macha dropped back to walk beside her. "What is it that's crawled under your skin lately, flametosser? You can't keep your hands off the big cat but you've stopped talking. Even to the ranger." Her grin had a tinge of malice in it.

Eithna snapped back. "I pet things when I'm nervous. Can't you feel the wrongness all around us? It's like the jungle has eyes that never close. I can't stand it one more minute, not one more." She shuddered, a wave of something dark and filthy rolling over her. "Tell me you can't feel it. Tell me I'm crazy."

Macha took a long breath and closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at Eithna squarely. "It's death magick. Is that what you feel? Like when I'm casting?"

Eithna nodded, then shook her head. "Yes, except that it feels awful. I can't feel what you do this strongly. It's worse every day, Macha." She looked up at the other woman pleadingly. "I don't know how much more of it I can manage."

Macha squeezed her arm lightly. "Take the emerald out and wear it around your throat. See if that masks it." The lean brunette shuddered. "I can't bear the vitality it radiates, so it might help you endure the death magick hanging over this part of the wild lands."

"What's doing it?" Eithna asked as the group paused for Sorcha to peruse the map. Roibh's large hand rested lightly on her shoulder and Eithna looked away.

Macha had been watching, and her lips twisted brutally. "And here I thought you had eyes for the ranger. Jealous, are we?"

Eithna's laugh was low and hurt. "Oh no, not like you think, not at all. And as for my eyes, you worry about your own." She was busily working a long thin strand of gold wire around the emerald to hold it fast, and dropped to a seated position to braid the wire into a torc for her throat. She felt better just holding the stone, and caressed it as she worked. Macha had been right; the life force pulsing in the stone seemed to lessen the slimy feeling crawling up and down the back of her neck. She sighed with relief.

"Are you well?" Riocard had dropped into a crouch beside her, his eyes on her face. Ruari came rubbing up along her side, stroking his soft furry cheek against hers.

Eithna nodded. "Macha says its death magick that's been setting me off. Why I can feel it so strongly, I don't know, and it doesn't bother her at all, but I can't bear it. Something's very wrong and we're walking right into the heart of it. I'm frightened."

He nodded solemnly. "Ruari too. He doesn't like it here at all."

"You don't feel it?" she asked softly, working the last of the wire around the stone. The heat in her fingertips had made the metal soft and malleable. Fire for the life in the stone, she thought silently, finishing off the braid and tucking it under into a hooking closure. She laid it against the base of her throat and closed the hook, sighing with relief.

Macha stalked back, looking down at the three of them. "Sorcha says the old market is just up here. We could stop through there and make camp on the other side. If you'd just get it over with, you'd all feel better, and you could stop using the cat as a go-between." She laughed, despite the narrow angry glance Riocard sent her, and the glare Eithna threw at her.

* * *

14.

Roibh beckoned, gesturing beyond the path he'd just cleared to a small winding stone one. "It's the market," he grinned. "Look. Civilization and perhaps a tavern."

Macha's smile was dry. "Oh, that's what you need, Roibh. Another tavern to get tossed from. I do need a salvage kit or two, for sure." She indicated her heavy backpack, the weight of it dragging at her long frame.

Aedan laughed, the sound of it low and teasing. "You women can shop and we'll find Roibh's tavern." Macha smacked his shoulder with a short laugh and shook her head.

Eithna turned her head as they strode into the clearing ringed by small green houses built on stilts. A few Krytans stood by a scattering of small carts and open huts in the clearing. Eithna heard Aedan sniffing, and exchanged looks with him. He nodded back. The death magick that had hung like a pall over the last several days journey was stronger still here. Even the bright merry green of the stilt-lifted houses couldn't disguise the underlying scent of rotting vegetation. She approached the stall of a merchant with a display of charms to sell, sifting through them for fire charms, though what she needed more was a higher reserve of energy for casting her spells. Ruari paced restlessly beside Riocard, who bartered the pieces of weapons he'd salvaged to a crafter in exchange for the repair of his bow.

A whisper distracted her from the meager selection of charms. "I have better than these. Only a few gold to look, elementalist. Power you have dreamed of." She turned her head to the next stall. A simpering smile wreathed the face of a female villager, a Krytan even shorter than Sorcha. Something about her felt greasy, but the words tempted Eithna. She paid the gold to the woman, who tucked it away in her simple tan tunic and held out three charms. Every one of them reeked of death magic. Eithna glared at the woman in disgust.

"You charge me for even a look and all you have to show me is necromancy charms?" Her fingers quivered, anger making Fire leap to the tips of them instantly.

The merchant looked at the trembling of bright orange light beginning on Eithna's hands and hastily swapped out the three charms for three others. "My apologies, lady, please. Look at these instead. I must have picked up the wrong ones to show you. My deepest apologies." She bowed from the waist deeply, her hands held out to Eithna with three bright charms limned with the glow of Fire. One showed a bright explosion of fire impacting on the ground with flares reaching upward into the sky. Eithna touched it gently, feeling the heat in it, covetous of it.

"That one," she said firmly. "How much?"

"Only twenty five gold," the merchant simpered. "For such powerful magicks, tis a bargain."

"And the necklace to hold it," Eithna insisted. "For twenty five gold, you can spare the necklace as well, for without it the spell is useless."

The merchant nodded. "You drive a hard bargain, elementalist. It is yours." She wrapped the charm and empty necklace and handed them to her, the merchant's fingers jerking back abruptly as they brushed against her own in the transaction. Eithna watched the woman rub her hands against her tunic, as if brushing something sticky and unwanted off them. Something clicked. Macha had the same reaction to the Heart of the Forest; its vitality offended her.

Eithna hurried to Riocard's side. He was tucking two salvage wands into his pack and examining his bow with a wide smile. "Riocard," she whispered. "These people are the source of the death magick. The charm merchant reeks of it, and she couldn't bear the brush of my fingers. We have to get out of here. Something's wrong in this marketplace."

He looked at her, listening intently. "We'll find the others then." They turned, seeking the rest. Only Sorcha and Macha lingered in the open. "Where are Aedan and Roibh?" Riocard asked, distracting them from the stall of drying herbs.

Sorcha paid for a roll of parchment paper, then answered. "They did find a tavern after all. Or a man with a brewing talent, at any rate." She gestured to a small green stilt-house with heavy doors wreathed in vines.

Eithna strode toward the house, but Riocard took her arm. "Quietly, and wipe the killing look from your face, Eithna. If they're up to some trickery, don't give away that we know it." His voice was pitched low, for her ears alone. "And we'll go in together, as though interested in the man's brews. Quietly."

Eithna steeled herself, registering the wisdom of his words. She smiled widely, and gestured to Macha and Sorcha. "They can't have all the fun, girls." She laughed. "Let's catch up with them for a drink before we continue our journey."

Riocard bent over the necromancer and the monk, murmuring. Eithna saw them stiffen slightly, then return her smile. They came gliding forward, laughing and making a show of merriment as they neared the vine-laden doors.

* * *

15.

The sense of wrongness peaked as Eithna slid the door open, Riocard just behind her with Macha and Sorcha. "Hello, the brewmaster," she sang out happily. "We've a terrible thirst, and we hear our friends have found your cure."

A voice answered from behind a thick curtain of leaves sewn together. "Come back, then, friends, and join your party." The silence would have cued them even had the wrong feeling not done so, for Roibh had never in his life been a man to be quiet over a hearty brew. The absence of his voice now gave Eithna the chills, and she saw Sorcha's lips tighten with fear.

"Pour it generously, then," Macha lilted, holding the door open for her small troop of horrors. Ruari growled low in his throat, the fur at the back of his neck standing up stiff and high. Riocard nodded, and Eithna pulled the curtain aside and bent slightly to enter.

Aedan and Roibh lay side by side on a table, Roibh's heart cut from him and laid dripping on his belly. The man standing over them looked up as Sorcha screamed in horror and plunged the knife downward into Aedan's chest, slicing neatly through gristle and bone. Riocard fired off twin arrows, each sinking into the man's heart as he cut, but an arm appeared from behind another curtain and slid a knife neatly across his throat. Ruari took that one down and savaged him, tearing flesh from bone with his long, cruel teeth, swiping at another man and rending gobbets of bloody matter from his body as Riocard went down on one knee, clutching his throat. Eithna met his eyes in a slow motion moment of horror and disbelief, and watched the light go out of them. Her long high scream resonated off the walls as Macha's bone minions fought the villagers until they crumbled. The necromancer brought more of them from each villager as they fell, bones dancing in the air and turning on their former neighbors. Sorcha rent the clouds of poisons with bright blue healing light, keeping Eithna from feeling the slashes of knives as they reached for her. She twisted, filled with rage and hot grief, and let it pour in rivers of flame from her fingers. Phoenix fire filled the air, turning one attacker to ash, setting another on fire. Streams of burning rain fell, and the Heart of the Forest burst into fiery green life at her throat. Sorcha fed her energy and healing, making a small well of it burst up between her and the necromancer, and hot green flame swelled up the walls, burning the building to the ground, chasing the remnants of the villagers as Eithna fell weeping to her knees beside the ranger.

The earth trembled, and an explosion of fire rocked the house, then licked through the village, wiping every building from the grass, burning every stall and stilt until nothing remained. Macha brought fresh bone minons out of every body until a small army followed shambling behind her; only their three fallen comrades remained unmolested.

Ruari howled with grief beside Eithna. She pressed her face into the great cat's shoulder, both of her hands closed over Riocard's chest. In vain, she used the last of her energies to try to heal him, even knowing it was too late and her own healing skills too little. Sorcha was standing over Roibh when she looked up. The tiny blonde whirled her arms and cried out, and Eithna watched as something miraculous happened. The spinning column of blue-white light the monk raised fell into Roibh's body, and he sat up. Eithna was momentarily horrified, then remembered. She had heard of monks that could resurrect after death. She clutched at Ruari's fur, and hugged him tightly as hope sprang back to life in her.

Roibh coughed, one hand over his chest, and grimaced, laying back down to rest. Eithna saw nothing of the zombie in him; it was simply Roibh, though tired and quiet. "She can bring him back, Ruari," she whispered, opening her fists and cupping Riocard's face between her hands.

Sorcha nodded, taking a deep breath and whirling about next to Aedan. Again, his previously dead body came bolt upright with a gasp of air, and he shuddered as Macha slid her arms around him and pressed her face to his shoulder. Eithna watched the woman's slender shoulders quiver and shake, and she shook her head. Macha never cried.

"Please," she whispered as Sorcha staggered over to stand beside Riocard's body. "You can raise him too, can't you?"

Sorcha's mouth was grim. "Give me a moment, Eithna. I've never had to do three in one day before. I'll try. We might have to wait a bit if it doesn't work the first time."

Eithna nodded. "You look exhausted."

Sorcha looked over her shoulder where Roibh lay sleeping. "You too. I didn't know fire could burst from the walls like that, nor burn so hot and yet touch not one of us. How did you do that?"

Eithna shook her head. "Some of it was the stone. Whatever these people were, it offended the Heart of the Forest. The taint in the air is gone. Please." She touched Sorcha's hand, squeezing lightly. "I can't bear to see him dead any longer."

Sorcha smiled. "That is why I raised Roibh first. I understand." She fell into the whirling dance, waving her arms, and the bright column of light crashed into Riocard's throat and chest. He gave a great wheezing breath, coughed, and sat bolt upright. Eithna forgot to be careful, and threw her arms fiercely around him. Ruari licked his face happily, stalking about them in circles before sitting right behind the ranger, giving him a living backrest.

"You cried for me," Riocard whispered.

Eithna hugged him harder, her eyes full of relieved tears. "And you thought I would not because? I am sick to the teeth of being careful and dancing around it, Riocard, and I won't any longer." She shook him lightly, pouring her small healing skill into his flesh until she trembled with magickal fatigue.

He lifted her chin, and met her eyes. "Then I won't either," he murmured, and kissed her tenderly at last.

* * *

16.

Eithna woke to see Sorcha crouched by her, her hands filled with a thick book. Behind her, Riocard stirred in his sleep, and Sorcha laid a finger over Eithna's lips, silently handing the volume to her. Eithna sent her a questioning look, and Sorcha shrugged, tapping the rough, hairy cover of the book, then opening the cover. The firelight made the orange-gold of the lettering glow, seeming to dance on the pages in flickering movements.

Eithna rolled carefully out of Riocard's arms, cautious not to wake him. They'd fought hard that morning against a troop of jungle trolls and vicious thorny plant-like monsters, and he needed his sleep. She crept quietly to the fire, Sorcha beside her.

"I found it after the horsemen we fought at the waterfall," Sorcha said quietly. "It felt holy, so I held it, but I cannot read it. All the paintings are of fire."

Eithna bent her face, studying the pages. The illustrations were familiar…she gasped. "It's a tome of the Charr Firecallers. All these spells, this, oh, Sorcha. It's a training manual. How did the Maguuma clan come to have it?"

Sorcha's mouth twisted unhappily. "It's the book the Mantle sent us out here for. It's real, and they want it. You can read it?"

Eithna nodded, turning the pages. "Enough, I can read it enough. I can use it, more than that. Sorcha. This is what I wanted to learn from the Mantle. How did they know of the Charr? When we came to Kryta, they said they had never heard of them." A terrible suspicion took seed in Eithna's heart.

Sorcha nodded. "This is the book they wanted us to find. An ancient tome of old Krytan magicks, they said." She closed the book, and pointed to the cover. "They told me it had gold lettering and a rough cover, that it had been bound in animal hides."

Eithna gave her a long look. "They said they had never heard of the Charr, but the Charr had never lived in Ascalon before either. Do you suppose the Mantle somehow sent the Charr after Ascalon? If they knew about this book, Sorcha, they knew about the Charr. This is a training manual for Charr Firecallers; all that makes sense is that there was some relationship between the Mantle and the Charr."

Sorcha shuddered. "After all their platitudes when my father died, and after everything the Charr did to me, how could they? How could they?"

Eithna's lips tightened grimly. "We'll show it to everyone in the morning, Sorcha. We've got to decide what's to be done. And I'll study it in the meantime, and hope I can learn aught from it. I'll be damned if I'll give the White Mantle one more tool to use against the people of Ascalon and Kryta."

Sorcha squeezed her hand lightly. "I'm sorry I didn't show you sooner. I had thought to hold onto it until we reached Silverwood, then turn it over to the Mantle. I dreamed tonight that it was Hablion and Darrigan that killed Roibh, and I knew I couldn't do that. In my dream, Confessor Dorian told me to bring the book to the one that could read it. I rarely dream, so I listened."

Eithna smiled then. "Danu bless you for doing so, Sorcha. I can learn from this book, and we can turn the Mantle onto their heads."

* * *

17.

Eithna's eyes were bleary by the time the sun rose. She blinked, stiff and achy everywhere, and stretched. Warm fingers bracketed her wrists, tugging her gently upward. She smiled up at Riocard.

"So, my fire leaves my side for a book. The newness must have worn off already," he teased, one arm around her waist lightly. He steadied her, and she winced as her legs wobbled. "What's this, then?" he asked, looking more closely at her.

She held the book out solemnly. "What the Mantle sent us after in the first place. Tis a Charr Firecaller's learner, Riocard. I'd like to show everyone else, and have Sorcha tell us how she came to find it."

His eyes were thoughtful. "Wake them, then. I'll find breakfast if you cook it."

Eithna laughed out loud, stretching again. "I'd rather have a hot spring than moa bird eggs right now," she admitted.

His finger caressed the line of her stubborn jaw and he grinned at her. "That's what you get for staying up late to read." He loped off into the forest with Ruari to frighten birds from their nests and gather eggs for breakfast while Eithna tossed more wood at the fire and brought it with a careless wave of a finger to a comfortable blaze once more. She set the skillet over the fire to heating, then slipped off behind their camp to tend to her own needs and then bathe in the small, still pool nearby.

Aedan was frying eggs when she returned, and Eithna waited until they'd all eaten to pull the book from the roll of her blanket. "Sorcha, will you tell everyone where you found this, and what you dreamed of it last night?"

Sorcha related the tale of the canvas sack the Maguuma horsemen had been dragging with them, and the book it contained that fit the description of the one the Mantle had been seeking. Eithna saw the grim looks the others exchanged as the monk related her dream to them and cleared her throat delicately.

"The book in question is a Charr Firecaller book, used for training purposes. That makes the Mantle's knowledge and need of it suspicious. However," she paused and sipped at her water. "I've learned some interesting things from it. The Charr Firecallers have a way with Fire that is beyond understanding, and now I know why." She grinned. "And I think I can reproduce some of their best tricks now, thanks to the book."

Aedan shook his head. "If that's the case, I say the Mantle don't get the book."

Roibh nodded agreeably. "I say we find every Justiciar and Abbot and Confessor in the wild lands and slaughter them."

Riocard laughed. "With what army, Roibh? The six of us against every power-laden man in Kryta? Are you mad?"

Macha waved a finger at him for silence. "I think we can find help, Riocard. Don't you?" She gave him a significant look, one that said she knew something about him the others did not.

Riocard sighed. "Aye, perhaps. But it's dangerous, Macha. You know that. Once the Mantle figure out we've allied ourselves with the Krytan underground, we've not long to live if they catch us."

"Krytan underground?" Sorcha gasped.

Macha nodded. "The same underground that Riocard and I have been gathering information for."

Aedan looked at her. "You're spies? You and Riocard, all this time, you've been spying for the underground? What if we'd all turned out to be loyal Mantle devotees?"

Riocard shrugged. "Then we'd have kept quiet and gathered information. That's all. It's not like being spies. We've just been watching and listening, that's all. I have a contact in Silverwood we can go to, but we'll have to be careful about how we approach the Mantle."

Eithna smiled. "Approach them? How do we approach them when we're carrying a book they want and we have no intention of giving it to them?"

Macha looked at her. "Carefully, as the man said. We'll have to work that out before we reach Silverwood. Our contacts will pick up the information we have for them, and we'll find a way to put the Mantle off. They can't know how strong we've become, though, none of it. The only reason they haven't assassinated us the way they did our mothers or fathers is that they've thought us weak and little threat. If they realize all we know and all we can do, we're dead."

Riocard nodded. "They'd come at us en masse then, and leave us no chance of survival."

Eithna paused. "What if just one of us went into town openly, to tell them we've not found the book yet?"

Roibh snorted. "And the rest of us would do what? Hide in the woods?"

Aedan interrupted. "No. Pretend to have abandoned the quest completely."

Macha shook her head. "No, Aedan. If they'd no more use for us and knew we'd survived, they'd hunt us down one by one. We have to stick together, and try to make it past Silverwood to the lands of the underground. There are more of them past the Wilds, past Silverwood. We'll be safer there, and they can use the information we have for them."

Roibh rolled his eyes. "Information like what? The Maguuma spiders are enormous and bites are poisonous, or that the horsemen fight better than most of the warriors in Lion's Arch, or perhaps about necromantic Krytan villages that vanish in the night?"

Sorcha laid her hand on his chest. "Like the book, Roibh. It could strengthen the underground so they can overthrow the Mantle completely. I want them to pay for infesting Ascalon with the Charr invasion."

Riocard smiled. "How about the knowledge that the Mantle goes on a quest every year to seek out all Krytans with potential power so it can slaughter them? Where do you think those villagers got the idea that they could steal our power by killing us?"

"Slaughter?" Aedan asked, going pale. "You're talking about the journey of the Eye each year!"

Riocard nodded. "Yes. That is the purpose of the Eye's journey. The Mantle sacrifice what they catch in order to prevent the Krytans from amassing an army of the empowered, and secondly to leech the power from them as they die."

"I was nearly chosen one year," Aedan muttered. "My mother caught up with me as the first tendrils of the Eye's seeking touched me, and it turned away. She'd never admit it, but I always thought she'd done something to stop it from marking me as one with power."

"The first step is getting past Silverwood," Eithna said quietly. "We've got to agree on how to do that before anything else."

* * *

18.

Riocard slunk into town, his gait so different than his normal easy stride that Eithna wouldn't have recognized him from a distance. She followed him silently, her head down. She was tempted to look around Silverwood in case they never got back here again, but fought that thought successfully. She had to keep her most abject and disempowered face on, and hope not to look dangerous. She and Riocard were going to try to bluff the Mantle into believing everyone else had been killed by the Maguuma horsemen, and further into believing that they were still looking for the book. Riocard had hidden his restrung and high powered bow outside town with Roibh, and the one hanging across his back now looked like the horsemen had been nibbling at it. Eithna's scepter was covered in filth and dirt, as were their clothes. She hid the Heart of the Forest under her elementalist's robes and the new charm necklace had stayed behind with Sorcha. Ruari had stayed with Sorcha and Roibh under protest; Riocard hadn't wanted the lynx's proud bearing and obvious good health to be a dead giveaway.

"I hate this," Eithna murmured to him, for his ears alone.

He nodded, rounding the corner by the temple of the Mantle. A guard stopped them, looking askance at their grubby clothing and poor equipment. Riocard and Eithna stared blankly at him until he cleared his throat and stepped back. "State your business," the guard intoned gruffly. Eithna wondered if it was the ripe jungle smell of the two of them that had made him back up and fought down a giggle. That had been on purpose as well.

The ranger slouched against the clean white column of the temple. "Pair from Lion's Arch. Gotta report for the Justiciar. Something 'bout a book. Dunno." His voice was a gravelly monotone, and he shrugged.

The guard looked on the dark smear of stinking mud left on the column with distaste. Eithna blinked up at him stupidly, trying hard not to laugh at Riocard's show of a great lack of intellect and grace, because it was so completely unlike him. The guard sighed and shook his head. "Wait here," he offered, then turned on his heel and vanished inside the temple.

"Dun think much of their hospitality," Eithna muttered darkly, scuffing her worn boot against the stone, leaving another dark smear of mud behind. "Din't even offer us nothing to eat, noplace to sit." She stayed in character, slouching against the other gleaming white column, and began picking her nails with a salvaged piece of metal.

"Ain't like we're important," Riocard muttered back. "Runnin errand's all." He slid down the column into an ungraceful sprawl.

The guard returned, wrinkling his nose. "His Grace, Manton the Indulgent, will see you now." He opened the door and stood away from them several paces as he held it open. Riocard and Eithna slunk through the door in unison, managing to stumble into each other and knock against the clean gleam of the doorframe. They exchanged a secret glance of glee and stamped their boots at the entrance.

"Nice joint," Riocard observed, smudging a dirty finger over a painting in the entrance hall.

"Please don't touch anything," the guard said disparagingly. "This way." He led them down a long hall into an audience room, where a large man, resplendent in the white and red of the Mantle stood by the fire. Eithna could feel the power rippling off him, and realized he was manipulating the flames. She carefully tamped her own power into nothingness, schooling her face to stupidity and blankness.

The man turned with a cold smile. "I am Manton, called The Indulgent. I had heard that Justiciar Hablion had sent out a party of adventurers to find the ancient Book of Orr, stolen long ago from our brethren. Are you those brave Ascalonians?"

Riocard nodded. "We're all's left, Lord Manton. Resta the folks died and the miss here can't rez. Haven't found no book but heard tell what a buncha them horseman things mighta took it. We'll find it, just reportin' in 's all."

"Is this the little elementalist that applied for schooling with the Mantle?" Manton stood closer to her, as if to examine her, then backed off with a wrinkle of his nose. Eithna had felt his magicks pushing at her, tempting her own to answer, but had kept them silent and hidden. The distance he gave her lessened her difficulty with that task as he retreated closer to the fireplace.

Eithna nodded, giving him eager stupid eyes. "I'm gonna be a famous elementalist." She bobbed her head eagerly a few times. "Justiciar Hablion said so if I get his book. He says it's real pretty but not to try to read it or nothin'."

Manton clicked his bootheel against the floor, then tossed a small bag of coins to Riocard. "Here's something for your trouble, man. May you and your woman find the Book of Orr soon. Bring it to me when you find it."

"You got food around here?" Riocard asked, picking up a gold chalice and examining it.

The guard whipped it from his hand with a stern look. "I said not to touch things."

Riocard shrugged. "We ain't had nothin' in days in the wild lands."

Manton rolled his eyes, backing further away and tamping down the fire. The heat had begun to bake the Maguuma swampy mud and the stink of it rose from their clothes and boots. "Guard, have the kitchen send out a generous supply of rations for these brave children of Ascalon. Thank you." He dismissed them with a glance and another cold smile, then turned his back as the guard led them out.

Riocard slouched by the door as Eithna muttered to him. "Fair share, half is mine you promised." She pointed at the small bag of coins at his belt as they waited outside for the guard to return.

He shrugged. "Whatever."

She pouted. "We find that book, you think he'll give us more?"

He shrugged again. "Mayhap he will, mayhap he won't."

The guard returned with their food, and gave them a withering look. He'd overheard exactly what they'd intended him to. "Tis an honor to serve the Mantle," he said huffily, tossing a large sack to Eithna. "Best you Ascalonians remember that. The Mantle gave you people shelter when you ran from the Charr."

Eithna nodded, eyes wide. "The Mantle's real good folks," she said, bobbing her head up and down stupidly. "Thankee, guard. Unseen Ones bless you an all." She veiled her eyes with her hair to hide the rage in them at his careless dismissal of the pain and grief her people had endured at the hands of the Charr.

The guard waved his hand at them. "Yes yes, get going." Eithna and Riocard slunk from town lazily, exactly as they'd come. They spoke to nobody, but Eithna thought she saw Riocard turn his bow to his other shoulder as another ranger turned his own. She wondered if that had been the contact from the Underground he'd mentioned, and couldn't wait to tell the others how their run at the Mantle had gone.

* * *

19.

Eithna sank under the hot spring's soothing warmth with a long sigh of relief. She'd sanded off the worst of the mud before entering the small pool, and now sat reflecting on the next step in their plan, soaking off the remainder of her disguise. The others had laughed at how easily she and Riocard had duped the Mantle, but Eithna wasn't convinced.

"Too easy," she murmured.

"Far too easy," Riocard agreed, sliding in next to her. "Faugh, but we stink."

Eithna laughed. "And wasn't that the point? Playing stupid, cultureless and poor to the almighty Mantle? But still, they've not risen to power on being easy to fool. That worried me."

He grinned at her, rubbing sand through his hair to squeak the mud free of it. "For an elementalist, you're fairly smart."

She splashed him, heating the water with a swift flare, and laughed as it ran down his cheek. "How do we get past their next encampment? The same won't work twice."

Riocard shrugged. "Our contact will come out and find us in the next day or two. We have to stay planted for a bit, and stay out of the sight of the Mantle. If they find out we lied about the others being dead, they'll find us all and leave not one alive."

Eithna sighed, leaning against him closer to rebraid his hair and tuck the feathers back into it. "Yes, that was the risk we agreed to take. But they have an enormous fortress ahead, or so Sorcha's map shows. We can't just boldly walk through it."

Macha appeared behind the pool, her voice lazy. "No, but we can sneak around it. There are ways, Eithna. You just have to know who to ask. If we're careful, we can get around the fortress and into the other half of the wild lands beyond the Mantle's control. The underground Krytans can help us."

"Will they?" Eithna smiled at her, uncomfortable. "Or will they try to kill us to steal our power as well? We've not had the finest luck with the Krytans in these lands so far."

Macha smiled at them coolly. "Those were not typical of the Krytans. They've a deep respect for the land and each other. Which is why I'm amazed that the Mantle has managed to take hold as it has. Why, Eithna, you're blushing." The necromancer grinned at her. "Don't worry, I'm leaving. Ruari has dinner and Aedan is cooking it for us."

Eithna waved her off, torn between laughter and embarrassment. Riocard's sides heaved with laughter beside her. "You're easily made to blush," he teased. "But we don't stink anymore. Dinner?"

Eithna pretended to ponder. "Rare rabbit again? Oh, I could." She pulled herself out of the small warm pool, shaking her hair out and sliding into clean clothes. Riocard laced her into her robes as she squeezed his hair dry.

The rabbit wasn't rare at all, but juicy and young. Macha and Aedan had managed to leave a coded message for the underground, and he'd returned the message to Riocard with that flip of the bow in Silverwood. Roibh and Sorcha had managed to mask their camp with branches and the heavy undergrowth around them to keep the Mantle from discovering them. Riocard related the tale of their trip into town, and its results, and Eithna chimed in with her feeling of discomfort about the whole thing.

"It could have been a trap," Aedan agreed.

"But to what end?" Macha argued. "What point would there be in laying a trap for us? They don't think we're important at all."

"But," Riocard pointed out, "they found us important enough to send on this wild goose chase and hope we'd die."

Sorcha nodded. "True. So, the next step?"

"We wait," Macha said firmly. "The underground will find us."

Roibh sighed gustily. "I hate sitting still. Can't we at least find some trolls to kill or something?"

Eithna laughed. "You'll never change. I'm just grateful we've had some relative peace this last day or so."

Roibh grinned back at her. "And you'll never change, noisy girl. You can't sit still but you hate conflict."

Eithna nodded. "I don't like to kill. I don't want to let anything kill any of us, but it just seems a waste. Like the tree. There'll never be another. And we had to kill it."

Sorcha giggled, the sound still odd coming from her formerly serious face. "You regret killing a tree?"

Eithna shrugged. "I know it sounds strange, but it was beautiful. It was so alive, and yet the treasure it yielded has benefited us greatly. I can't entirely regret it." She smiled and yawned. "I have studying to do. That Charr Firecaller manual won't help us if I can't decipher and learn all the spells." She sat back, propping the book on her knees as the others continued to talk softly. She immersed herself in the play of energies drawn out on the page, and the different uses for Fire's life. There were spells to set enemies on fire, and spells to invoke Fire's sacred life at a distance, but with more power than the firestorm she already could call up. She read and whispered to herself until her eyes blurred, and then tucked herself into the roll beside the lean warmth of the ranger.

* * *

20.

"Power up!" Roibh yelled the warning as he ran by Sorcha and Eithna. He was bleeding, and limping even as his body's store of adrenaline pushed him past the pain into functioning. The arrow protruding from the back of his thigh leaked blood in a trail down to the grass, bright crimson splashed onto the thick growth covering the ground.

Sorcha sent bright arrows of healing energy toward him as Eithna attuned herself with fire, then caught her breath as a pair of grim-faced Mantle fighters rounded the verge behind him. They'd been found. The arrow fell to the grass with a thick thud as the healing knitted up his flesh and forced the arrow out of his thigh, and Eithna struck the Mantle warrior in the face with an enormous flaming rock. The Mantle's ranger took aim and fired, and the arrow caught her in the shoulder hard. She gasped with pain, eyes watering, but brought down a searing cape of flame to cover the ranger. The warrior struggled to his feet again, slashing at Roibh with a wild cry.

"Protect yourself!" the Mantle's warrior cried to his companion, then fell under the smashing stroke of Roibh's sword. The warrior died with a gurgle and Roibh turned grimly onto the ranger, closing the distance between them rapidly.

"Don't let him get away, Roibh, he'll bring more down on us!" Eithna cried to him as Sorcha's healing energies forced the arrow from her body. The knitting muscle and skin pulled painfully as she raised her arms and rushed the ranger, calling the Phoenix. Her new meteor spell worked well, but had been difficult to pull off with so little practice. She fell back to the familiar now, bringing the burning bird of flame up against the Mantle's body and sending it flying into his face. He ducked, but to little avail. Roibh's sword cleaved his head from his body with a spray of blood, covering the three of them in the juice of the Mantle's dying heart.

Eithna shuddered as Ruari skidded to a halt beside them, Riocard's eyes and mouth gone to grim as he looked down. She wiped blood from her eyes and put a hand out to Sorcha, whose turquoise healing glitter was reknitting Roibh's arms and legs. Her arms burned as healing energy covered her too and her skin tightened nearly unbearably.

"How?" Riocard gritted, his teeth clenched.

Roibh sat for a moment, shaking his head. "The two of them were right in my path when I was scouting out from camp. Waiting there, as if they knew. We're going to have to move, and soon."

Riocard groaned. "That means no contact with the underground. We can't risk returning to town, and we can't stay here. We're on our own."

Sorcha finished healing them, and turned with calm eyes to Riocard. "We have been all along, and we have been alright. I trust you to guide us and Roibh to protect us. We'll return to camp and pack, and go as quickly as we can."

Riocard shook his head. "We've no guide now for getting around the Mantle's fortress," he said grimly. "I don't know this area well, and your map is from the Mantle—who knows what they left out apurpose?"

Sorcha shrugged. "We will find a way, Riocard." She turned back to camp, Roibh following her closely, his limp gone. He'd a far greater tolerance for accepting her healing than Eithna had, or he'd a far better mask for the pain it caused. Eithna winced and stretched her newly healed shoulder. Riocard's warm fingers stroked the small pink scar and he shook his head.

"We're in trouble, Eithna. This is going to be all but impossible."

She leaned back against him lightly. "Sorcha's right. We're a team. This we can do, because we must. There is no way to the lands controlled by the underground without passing through the Mantle's inner sanctum. You know the forests, and you know the wild lands. You can guide us safely through, I know it."

He smiled, lips warm against her hair. "Your faith in me is touching, acushla," he murmured. "And greater than mine in me, certainly."

She laughed as he took her hand and led her back to camp. Macha was already packing, her face tight. "They found us too fast," she said. "I have to think the underground has a traitor in its midst."

Riocard nodded agreement, extinguishing the fire and covering the firepit in leaves and wet brush. "I think there must be, and that means more Mantle are coming to find us. Not so unimportant after all, are we."

Aedan laughed. "Not quite. If they know where we are, then they know we have the book. Perhaps that is what they seek." Crashing noises startled them as they slung backpacks over their shoulders.

Riocard dragged Eithna behind a high flowering plant with broad leaves. He nocked an arrow as the party hurriedly took obscured places around the camp's edges, hiding themselves until the intruder was revealed. Two abbots and a pair of warriors garbed in the Mantle's red and white broke through first, followed by a pair of zealots and two rangers. They poked the brush aside and discovered the firepit, still warm.

"They can't have gone far." The taller of the abbots frowned. "Find them, and find that book, or we are all at risk. Manton will not look favourably upon us should we fail."

Eithna sent a despairing look to Riocard and gestured with her fingers. Her Fire attunement had not faded, but her energy had rebounded. Did he want to try to take them on now, or wait? He nodded slightly and sent a high hooting call across the small clearing, hoping that the others would understand. They would stand here, and take out as many of this party of the Mantle as they could, hoping to give themselves time to make a clean escape through the fortress ahead.

Eithna hummed softly, seeing the eight Mantle gathered around the firepit closely. She threw her arms straight up and pulled them down hard, seeing in her mind's eye the brightly burning ball of Fire before it materialized, and sent it careening into the entire group. They fell back, crying out, all of them burned and smoking. The two abbots began healing the others, but Riocard's arrows flew from the bushes around the camp to cut them down.

"Take the healers first!" he cried, and Roibh crashed out of the tree he'd climbed directly onto the taller abbot, crushing him as he stabbed his sword through the chest of the other. He leapt up, whirling, swerving through a heavy cloud of noxious poison Macha had raised. Aedan sent waves of weakness, rendering the warriors legless to protect Roibh's back as he cut down both abbots. Riocard nodded grimly, and Eithna unleashed a firestorm on the pair of Mantle's rangers. Macha's poison had further weakened the zealots, but she cried out as their magicks shattered her own as she cast, cutting her spirit deeply. Roibh bellowed angrily as Macha fell from her perch, senseless. He kept the zealots from rushing her as Riocard's arrows took one warrior down, and Eithna sent a raging stream of fire to band itself tightly around the rangers. They cried out, rolling on the ground as they were set on fire, the ground doing nothing to aid them. Riocard cut down the second warrior as he slashed mightily across the back of Roibh's legs, hamstringing him. Roibh fell and Sorcha cried out, sending healing light to him, diverted from Macha's body. Eithna rushed from her hiding place to protect Sorcha as she healed him, sending a Phoenix to sear the zealots threatening her. Riocard fired off a volley of arrows, each seeking one of the four remaning Mantle, and one of the zealots fell. Sorcha whirled into her resurrective dance, chanting and waving her rod, bringing Macha gasping off the ground. The other zealot suddenly screamed, batting at shadows, and Eithna felt the strength of Aedan's magicks swirling around her. The zealot turned horrified eyes to her and died, the illusion sending his heart into a fatal spasm of fear. Eithna took an arrow through the leg and stumbled, falling over Sorcha as she grimly healed Macha to full health again, and Macha enveloped the rangers in a cloud of dark green poisonous fumes. Roibh was on them by then, swinging, bellowing through the rain of Riocard's arrows as they sank swiftly and accurately into the remaining Mantle. Finally, both rangers were down and Ruari tore them apart, ignoring the second fireball crashing into them from the sky. Eithna slid down to the wet ground, exhausted and aching.

The Mantle's party lay strewn about the clearing in thickly pooling blood that had already attracted the enormous scavenging insects of the jungle. Sticky heat washed the scent of carrion over the clearing as Sorcha knitted them all back up, then leaned against Roibh, grey with fatigue.

"We can't stay to rest," Riocard said softly. "We have to move, before more come."

Eithna nodded wearily, nauseated by the outhouse and graveyard stink of death around them. "You're right. Lead us to the entrance of the fortress. We'll rest later."

* * *

21.

Roibh broke through a patch of underbrush, savagely mauling the dry plantlife with a grunt of frustration. Eithna giggled, but quietly. Riocard shot her a look brimming with amusement. Seeing the burly warrior chopping at the tenacious vines was comical after having seen him grim and deadly in battle against the Mantle's warriors and rangers. The Mantle were a full day behind them by now, but the sense of pressing urgency had not lessened one bit. The lush jungle had evaporated into a more familiarly desertlike environment, but the plants were something else. They'd been attacked that morning by a pair of sentient thorny plants, and since then Roibh had been vicious against every plant in their path whether it moved or didn't.

"I don't think that one bites, warrior," Macha observed coolly.

Roibh growled back at her. "I don't care. Thorns are thorns and I care not for them one whit."

Eithna giggled. "The man who faced down Oswald the Amiable is afraid of thorns?"

Sorcha joined her in laughter, but it was small. They were all tired, mentally and physically, and had not made an overnight camp in longer than they cared to remember. Eithna felt better for having had the laugh, small or not. There had been damned little to laugh about lately.

Roibh sent her an evil glare. "I fear nothing, and I fear no man."

Eithna whispered to Sorcha so that Roibh could hear her. "Unless he was a man of thorns."

Roibh cuffed her shoulder lightly, but grinned. "Noisy girl. Ho, Riocard, a clearing just ahead." His voice tightened with warning. "It's not on the map."

Aedan closed his eyes as Eithna closed hers. She felt him reach as she did, to "see" what lay ahead. Little magickal stirred in the clearing, but something larger loomed over the land beyond it. It was vague, obscured by her fatigue, but she felt it. It didn't have the ugly feel the Krytan village had, but it was strong. She opened her physical eyes to share a look with Aedan. He nodded and she looked at the others.

"There's something, but not in that clearing. Something beyond it. Riocard, are there people or creatures there?"

He nodded grimly. "Several. You hold here. Ruari and I will climb that vine up and see what we can spy out. Wait here." He said it firmly, giving Eithna a sterner look than the rest.

She smiled innocently. "We'll stay here, then." She sat, conserving her energies, and the others followed suit, except for Roibh, who paced the small path and sipped water from his flask.

Sorcha skimmed her hands over Eithna's shoulder lightly, and warmth penetrated deeply. Eithna sighed relief. Even the stiffness and joint pain from days of walking lessened under Sorcha's skill. She smiled thanks to the small blonde, then reached out to squeeze Sorcha's hand lightly.

"Thank you. I'd not have asked you to do that." She patted the healing fingers softly with another smile.

"I know," the monk smiled back. "But you needed it. Something a little gentler than the usual dose of healing, since you fight it."

Eithna laughed softly. "I do, I just can't help it."

Sorcha nodded. "People with stronger physical skills I can heal easily, and they don't fight it. But you, Aedan, Macha. You three, it's as though your own power struggles against mine while I'm healing you. The more you need the healing, the more your magick tries to block it out. You elementalists and your power issues are the worst." She sent a teasing smile Eithna's way.

Eithna sighed. "Aye, I've had issues about it my whole life. I'm considering giving it all up to be a chicken farmer once we're safe." They both burst into smothered giggles then, clutching at each other for balance. Sorcha laughed until she cried, burying her face in Eithna's shoulder. Eithna held her gently, shooing Roibh off with a look when he bent closer, concerned. Sorcha just needed to cry a bit, and Eithna was willing to let her, more than a little tempted to burst into tears herself. The constant running in front of the chasing Mantle was wearying, and she was tired of traveling and missing a home with a yard, and plants, and a fireplace.

"I'm tired of not feeling safe too, Sorcha," she murmured.

"You'll think I'm a great infant," Sorcha sniffled, drying her face with her fists.

Eithna shook her head and smiled gravely. "Oh no. I don't blame you at all. I just want to go home, and there's not a one of us can do that now. It's an awful feeling. There just hasn't been time to think about it."

Sorcha nodded. "True. Thank you, Eithna."

Riocard appeared above them, his mouth tight and grim. "It's Holt and his company. We've not a damned chance against the lot of them en masse. But I've got an idea."

Eithna smiled up at him. "You always do, love." She took his hand and stood, helping Sorcha off the ground as well. The little monk looked all the steadier for her quick crying jag, and slipped her hand into Roibh's as Riocard spread the map out on the ground.

Aedan watched, shaking his head. "You think they'll buy the illusions and we can draw them up here a few at a time?"

Riocard looked at him evenly. "I traveled with them. With Holt The Iron Boot Heel, then with Hablion. They're men of tremendous arrogance, and so unopposed for so long that they've forgotten to protect themselves. Draw them back here in groups of two, and we can take them down easily before they realize they're under attack."

Aedan nodded, seeing the wisdom of that. "Easier than taking on twenty nine of them at once, especially as you say they're fresh and we're exhausted."

Roibh snorted. "They'll make fresh corpses then, and all the better for your partner's army of bones. Once she's raised the first pair, they can turn and help us fight the next. This Holt hasn't a chance."

Riocard's eyes were grave. "Holt is an experienced warrior, Roibh. You're no slouch, but this man is a killer. There's a reason they call him the Iron Boot Heel; that's what he places on his enemies' necks before he beheads them."

Sorcha squeezed Roibh's arm lightly. "Cautiousness is all the man is asking of us, Roibh."

Roibh nodded. "Aye, and that we'll have. Caution, and an army of undead Mantle helping us kill them." He snickered. "Some justice in that."

* * *

22.

Aedan crouched at the edge of the clearing. Two abbots and two knights strode the periphery in a circle. He sent a look back over his shoulder Macha's way. She nodded grimly and Roibh gestured at him to hurry. Roibh's sword glowed with dark orange and yellow flames while beside him Eithna crouched, her eyes closed and small flamelets hovering around her. He could feel her focus, and it reminded him to tighten his own. He wound his energy into a tight net, and cast it out over the four. They'd agreed on two, but the Mantle seemed to move in quartets. Four would have to do.

The abbots paused, hesitating, their faces paling as they gestured to the knights, whispering together. Slowly, the quartet moved out toward the thick dry vegetation screening the small clearing. Twigs and brush snapped under their feet as they marched out toward the Ascalonian refugees. Dust swirled in dark tan clouds around them.

Riocard sighed from his perch on the dried husk of a thorn tree, masked from sight with his own skill and the thick thorny branches. The Mantle had never learned respect for the land anymore than they'd learned it for the Krytan people. He watched them carelessly march over the ground, kicking at a plant, drawn to the illusion Aedan was busy weaving. Ruari growled softly beside him, and he laid a warning hand on the great cat's head. His lynx liked the Mantle no better than he did. He nocked an arrow and sent a burst of energy over the ground ringed by his companions. The Mantle were walking into the very edge of extinction; Roibh looked primed to kill, vibrating with angry restlessness, and Macha waited to turn the bodies into weapons.

The Mantle knights strode out from the tangle of thorns, casting angry looks back at the pair of abbots. "You priests will be the death of us, making us chase after shadows," one growled, brushing dried stalks of plants from the rich deep red of his cape.

The abbots bowed slightly in mock apology, but as they turned to go back, out burst Roibh from hiding, his flaming sword swinging out as he gave a low savage cry. He ripped into one abbot, severing an artery in the man's leg, then gashing him open with a swift second strike as the stunned abbot went down hard. The knights were on him then, but Riocard's clever arrows pinned them down, then sent one punishing shot after another into their bodies. They cursed loudly as the dead abbot rose as a pair of gibbering bone minions, green ichor dripping from their freshly animated bones. The howling horrors tore into the remaining abbot, who tried to turn and heal his defenders' wounds. The bone minions ripped him to pieces with teeth and skeletal fingers, and his last healing spell misfired as he died.

Roibh knew no fear or pain, deep in the buzzing white static of the killing place inside his head. He felt the strikes of the knights, and admired their skill, but no more than that did their attacks affect him. Sword and shield danced in his skilled hands as he took on both attackers at once.

"Defend yourself!" one cried to the other. They pressed their backs together, leaving him no soft easy place to strike; it only made him grin harder at them. His arm moved at blurring speed, thrusting the flaming sword up under plates of armor as he danced gleefully around them, caught up in the wonder of the moment. Fighting was better than being drunk.

He danced back slightly as the high whooshing whine of fire in action sounded behind him, and the meteor whizzed neatly down from overhead, knocking both Mantle down as four bone minions closed on them. He grinned at Macha admiringly while the knights screamed in horror at their former companions reknitted into necromantic nightmares. Roibh dealt the killing blow to the first knight, lopping his head off neatly where an arrow had struck through, the shining silver armor dripping with dark crimson blood.

"Matches your cape," Roibh observed merrily, sending the man's head rolling under a bush as he closed on the second, who had begun sobbing. The bone minions had torn off most of his armor, and Roibh obliged him with a quick thrust, pinning heart to backbone with a flash of a grin.

He sat heavily as Macha began weaving sturdier bone fiends out of the heavier carcasses of the White Mantle's dead knights. Sorcha came to him, her small face grave. Roibh tugged her into his lap and kissed her hair.

"You're bleeding," she said reprovingly.

"Yes, but you can fix that," he teased, his body tired as the adrenaline drained from it. "And quickly too, for I've six more sets of four to do before we're down to just Holt. I'm determined to take that Iron Boot Heel and shove it…"

Sorcha laughed, stilling his mouth with a fingertip as Riocard melted out of the tree to observe their handiwork. "Hush now and let me heal you."

He closed his eyes with a smile and let her.

* * *

23.

Riocard climbed the tree once more, weary beyond words. The clearing had trickled down through the day's ambushes to Holt and two of his knights. They sat careless of the vanished others, drinking ale by the fire. He slid back down with an approving pat for Ruari, who was licking blood from his whiskery face and looking supremely content. He stroked him, giving the animal comfort for his wounds, watching critically as the slashes stopped bleeding and melded together, healing faster under his touch.

He turned to the company, all five of whom looked close to exhaustion. "Holt's careless, but deadly. He's down to two men, and he's scarcely noticed that fact, but he soon will. Now we need to strike him down, and it must be quick. His knights will defend him, but they're three to our six."

Eithna lifted her head. "I've rested. I'm ready. Macha's creations can precede us, and give them something to distract them."

Macha pouted. "You're going to turn my art into cannon fodder. Really, Eithna," she said in mock reproof.

Eithna waggled an eyebrow at her. "It's time, the man says. And what do you think you made them for? It isn't as if they're very pretty," she teased the necromancer in return.

"I've been working on something," Aedan offered quietly. "Let me throw it at them before you and Roibh strike, and before Eithna sets them on fire. It should weaken Holt's defenses a great deal." He stood, and offered a hand to Macha.

Riocard nodded. "If we survive this fight, we'll all be safer for his death. Holt the Iron Boot Heel will be one less trap, and we're that much closer to the bridge between the Mantle's land and the lands the Shining Blade rule. Only two more watchtowers of Mantle strength stand between us and our freedom."

Eithna nodded grimly, agreeing. "We need to rest tonight, really rest, Riocard. None of us is at our best, which is why it's taken all damn day to kill these maggots of the Mantle."

"Take out Holt, Eithna, and we'll all have peace tonight before we need to move on," Riocard answered, running one hand over the weary line of her shoulder gently. She'd been brave; they all had, but they were tired of running, and so was he.

Aedan patted her other shoulder. "I'm ready to kill him just for a night's good sleep and a hot meal," he said agreeably, which made her laugh out loud.

* * *

24.

Eithna chanted softly, attuning herself with Fire. The bonfire at the center of Holt's camp leapt up slightly, and she leaned on it for power. She looked back, eyes slightly glazed with the rush of burning energy pouring through her, and found Riocard's gaze to steady her. He nodded, and Macha's bone fiends howled into the Mantle's camp, startling Holt into a yell and sending his knights crashing to their feet. While they fought the necromancer's creations, Eithna traced a sigil in the air, pointing it at Holt himself. She cried out at the feel of Fire pouring out of her fingertips, burning them as she invoked the power of Rodgort on Holt. He screamed aloud as he and his two knights were set on fire, their armor burning bright silver against their skin, metal melting with the fierceness of the blaze.

Riocard called out and Ruari rushed the clearing next, followed by a wave of arrows. Eithna had never seen the lean ranger shoot so swiftly. The Mantle seemed stunned by the assault as Roibh leapt out with the lynx, taking out the first knight easily before engaging the second. Eithna steadied herself with difficulty, grounding and centering for the next spell, but it was hard. She still felt drunk with the power of the invocation that had set all three of the Mantle on fire, and called a simple fireball to pelt Holt, who struck at Roibh's unprotected back.

A fresh bone fiend sprung from the corpse of the dead knight, and turned on Holt, tearing at him, distracting him from Roibh, who leapt over the lynx to get out of Holt's way. Aedan muttered something, and a bright purple line of energy connected hard with Holt's skull. Eithna nodded approvingly. The spell had been precise and well shot; she'd have to remember to ask him what it had been. Sorcha concentrated fiercely on Roibh, keeping vitality flowing into him continually as Riocard's arrow thudded into the neck of the knight and sent him down hard. Roibh took a breath and turned on Holt with a gleam of madness in his eye, but the bigger man sent him crashing into a patch of thorns with one blow from the ramshead hammer in his hand. Roibh lay still, and Sorcha slithered quietly to his side, screened by dusty rock and a thick net of thorns.

"Riocard ni Quinlan!" Holt cried into the forest of thorns and dry brush. "Come out, base traitor, and face your better before you die."

Riocard melted out of the thorns, smiling grimly. Macha had made a new fiend of the dead knight already, and it hovered just out of Holt's sight, waiting for her command. "Arrogance is your undoing, Holt. You'll put that heel on the neck of no more Ascalonians or Krytans."

Holt laughed. "Will you kill me then, ranger? Or must your friends do it for you? I will say, you've trained up the little spellcaster nicely. Manton will enjoy her when I bring her back to him. The rest we've no use for, especially you. Did you find my book?"

Riocard sent him a withering look. "I don't think you'll live to share another meal with your twisted brethren, Holt, so I don't suppose it matters to you in the least. Did you bastards enjoy sending the vicious Charr in great number to Ascalon? Did you think Rurik would let his future kingdom fall so easily, or did you just want every Ascalonian wiped off the face of Tyria?"

Holt laughed. "Ascalon was once so proud, so lovely. I walked those fields once, through Ashford and into the Abbey to study. I would have been sad when that loveliness fell to the predations of the Charr, except that it was too perfect. Proud Duke Barradin, last of the truly royal line, fallen with his king to those animals."

Riocard's gaze narrowed, rage boiling in him. The bastards had planned Ascalon's fall well, and had managed it with nary a suspicion falling on them. "You'll die for that, Holt. Barradin was my cousin, and I owe you for his death."

"Go on, then, ranger. Kill me yourself. I seem to remember you were once an accomplished swordsman. Come and duel with me, and kill me if you can." Holt the Iron Boot Heel smiled arrogantly, swinging his heavy hammer back and forth easily. "Come forward and I'll crush you into royal paste and the line for the throne of Ascalon will be well and truly dead."

Riocard nodded, drawing his sword as Holt took up a fighting stance. Eithna bit back a scream of terror. She'd just watched that man kill Roibh, the best warrior she'd ever seen fight, and she feared for Riocard's life. Riocard flicked a look back at her, and shook his head as she started forward. He smiled once, and strode into the clearing to meet Holt, his sword shining in the light of the bonfire.

Eithna sent fire blazing up the blade of his sword and prepared to cast. He had told her not to show herself, but she wanted Holt dead. The Mantle's casual comment about her being useful to Manton had sent chills chasing up her spine, and she'd rather die than let him kill Riocard or be captured. She caught her breath as Roibh rose unsteadily behind Holt, and looked beseechingly at Sorcha. The small blonde came weaving to her feet, and closed her eyes, surrounding Roibh in a glittering blue cloud of healing energy. Eithna's hopes soared. She watched numbly as Riocard and Holt began dueling, surprised by the degree of skill the ranger had with a sword. Each blow sent fear through her even as Roibh began to grin behind Holt, silently sliding closer. Riocard took the damage and Eithna sent him what small healing she could, watching the hammer bash at him. With a cry of frustration, she sent a flaming barrage of meteors showering down on Holt just as Roibh swept out with his sword, catching the Justiciar between body and helm with a fierce blow. Riocard thrust upward, sending his sword between the plates as Holt staggered under the meteor shower, the killing blow severing heart from pumping arteries.

Holt made a bubbling sound that was nearly a laugh. "Slain by Ascalon after all. Couldn't manage it in the last great war, but you kill me now, unworthy line of Quinlan. Rot in hell." On that curse, the once great Iron Boot Heel slid dead to the ground.

* * *

25.

The camp was quietly dark, the bonfire damped to smoky coals for the night. Ruari paced the limits of the ragged circle of dusty tan ground impatiently, yowling at something unseen that yowled back. The sound was near-startling after the barrage of noise and death that had been the day. Eithna gave a deep sigh and cuddled closer against the reassurance, long and lean and steady, that slept at her side. He moved in his sleep, one hand curling long-fingered around hers. It made her smile as she tried to relax into peaceful slumber again. She felt him come awake completely and suddenly, as was his habit.

"Don't make a sound," he murmured into her ear. "Something is out there. Don't move; pretend you're asleep and I'll make believe I'm stumbling off into the bushes for a moment." He concentrated, and Ruari suddenly began pacing around the company in a tight circle.

Eithna tensed, drawing on her weary spirit for the warmth of Fire within. The nearby glow of banked coals helped some as she lay there, rigid, waiting for Riocard to signal her. A lone woman strode out of the thorns and dirt, her bearing regal and her eyes piercing. She paused, looking down at Eithna.

"You're no more asleep than his lynx," she observed haughtily. "Riocard! I've a word for you."

The ranger melted back out of shadow, making Eithna catch her breath. She'd never get used to that unnerving habit of his, appearing out of nothingness like that. "Evennia. It's been a long time," he answered quietly.

Roibh's sword was drawn with a rasp, and the warrior leapt to his feet gracefully, holding the point out menacingly. "Your business here, stranger?" he growled.

The strange woman's mouth quirked, reminded Eithna of one of Macha's more sarcastic moods. "Is that of the Shining Blade, warrior," she answered coldly before turning to Riocard again. "Your kittens fought well for tools of the almighty White Mantle, Riocard." The back of Eithna's neck tightened as she rose. She didn't like the woman's arrogantly familiar tone in the least.

"We are no longer their tools, lady," she said, aligning herself next to Riocard. "If you watched us fight today, you know that. Holt the Iron Boot Heel is dead."

"And I wish Hablion at his side in hell," the woman replied bitterly. "The Mantle take every man and woman with an ounce of power, and slaughter them in secret at their twisted temple in the Bloodstone Fen."

Riocard nodded. "Aye, Evennia, I remember well. This party travels toward the wild lands where the Blade hold sway. We are much pursued by the White Mantle."

Now the woman's smile grew greedy. "Yes, for the book."

Eithna startled and she sent a look to Riocard. How had the Shining Blade, the secret Krytan underground rebellion, known about the old Charr Firecaller's Primer? Had he told them?

Riocard shook his head slightly as he looked evenly back at Evennia. "We've yet to find the book, Evennia. Nevertheless, the Mantle chase us down like wild pigs rampaging through the market in Lion's Arch."

Evennia shrugged. "There is a more important artifact you must gain, Riocard, if you and your kittens are up to it. Dinas holds the Scepter of Orr, with which we might summon a mighty army of the undead to undo the Mantle in Kryta."

Macha made a small mewling sound, then laughed rustily as she found her feet. "The Scepter of Orr is a legend, Evennia. If you know of it, then you know that. With it, the wielder commands the legion of undead to do her bidding."

Evennia's smile mocked the statement. "Dinas now holds that legend in his hand, waiting for one of the Shining Blade's agents to pick it up and carry it back to safety."

"Where is it?" Macha asked, her face tight and her eyes hot with desire.

Evennia's mouth quirked. "Oh, so now you'd chase legends, Macha ni Conn, who's never believed a myth in her life? Dinas holds it safe. If you agree to get it for me, I'll tell you where it is."

"Yes, fine, whatever. Tell us where it is, Evennia." Macha's voice came from between her teeth now.

"In the stronghold of the White Mantle that lies north of here."

Roibh burst into laughter. "You mean for us to walk into the Mantle's training grounds, wanted as we all are, and walk out with the scepter? You're trying to kill us faster than Justiciar Hablion ever was!"

Evennia was not amused. "If you're not brave enough," she shrugged.

"It's not a question of brave, Evennia, but of suicide," Riocard answered quietly. "I know not the lands around the keep, nor the layout inside."

"Once you reach its walls, Dinas will see you safely out. Come across the long bridge northeast of the back of the keep, and I will meet you on the other side. Do this, Riocard. That scepter is our only hope now." The woman smiled and dropped her eyes slightly, and Eithna bristled.

"If we need the scepter to defeat the Mantle, then we will get it," she answered defiantly, her fingers sliding around Riocard's wrist gently. "We can do this," she said to him, softly.

He nodded. "If Dinas doesn't betray us, yes. If he recants, we all die there, Eithna, at the mercy of Hablion and worse than he. Confessor Dorian resides there as well." His voice was grim.

Evennia shook her head. "Dinas would never betray us, Riocard. You know him better than that. After all the White Mantle has done to his family, he would never betray the Shining Blade to help those miscreants."

Riocard nodded. "Aye, you and Markis saved his nephew when the White Mantle murdered his sister and her other four children. He owes you two a debt of gratitude."

Evennia laughed. "And you as well, Riocard. After all, you saved his life when he was set upon by Zukra Cadava and Bija Gravewailer. He will give you the scepter, and you'll bring it to me over the bridge. Go quickly." She slipped a map into his hand, and vanished beyond the fire again.

Eithna dropped into a crouch as Riocard sat to study the map. There'd be no more sleep tonight.

* * *

26.

Eithna silently called up a small shimmer of Fire around herself, attuning her spirit with its energies. She felt the oppressive stink of the Mantle's hypocrisy on every movement of the air around them as they crept silently forward. She shuddered, half in fear and half in anticipation, and felt the answering press of Ruari's softness against her leg in comfort. She sent a small smile Riocard's way for the reassurance as he melted out of the shadows to stand beside her.

"If we wait here, the guard will chase off into the bush," he whispered, the sound carrying no further than her ear.

"How do you know?" She mouthed it more than answered.

"Aedan and Macha have formed a small distraction for them. When the seven of them rush off up the hill, we'll run forward past this first gate. Ready?" He pressed a soft kiss against her temple.

Eithna knew there was no other choice. Past the seven guards stood the tall forbidding watchtower of the Mantle, full to brimming with a host of warriors, rangers, and mages. Their choices were run or die. She nodded and crouched, ready.

A soft owl's cry burst from Riocard, and a flutter of nightbirds answered from the trees on the hill as they flew up in an explosion of sound and flight. The Mantle's guard startled, turning toward the hill as a host of bone minions poured over it toward them. Eithna watched tensely as the bone creatures led the guard away from the gate at the watchtower, and at the gentle nudge from Riocard, she flew through the gate, feeling her companions pound the sturdy ground just behind her. She ran on, even as Riocard and Ruari passed her easily, leading the six of them down the trail and into a small clearing. They stopped there, crouching to rest as Eithna caught up with them, breathless.

"Will we be doing that at every tower?" she gasped, dropping to her knees, bending forward to ease the stitch in her side.

Riocard nodded as Sorcha and Roibhilin dropped to the ground next to them. "Yes, we save the fights for when we need to, not when we just want to."

Roibh laughed. "If I'd met you long ago, ranger, I'd not now be unwelcome in Lion's Arch."

Macha curled into a neat ball alongside Aedan as the mesmer dove for the ground. "Tis a good thing Aedan's learned to knit up a few of those beasties on his own, Riocard. I'd have never managed all of them on my own."

Riocard nodded. "A bit of crosstraining helps us all, Macha. That's the first tower, and there are only two more to pass before we come to the stronghold, and Dinas. Dinas, who will hopefully not turn us in or cut us down in cold blood, but give us the Scepter of Orr, with which we can purchase safe passage into the Shining Mantle's lands."

"What then?" Eithna said it evenly, but feared the answer. "Will we run again then, from them? How can we trust this Evennia?"

Riocard looked at her steadily. "Macha and I know her and her people well. I trust her with my life, Eithna. More than that, I trust her with yours, which is infinitely more precious to me than my own."

Eithna's blush lit her face as a soft smile curved her mouth. She had not an answer for that, but pressed closer to Riocard. Macha grinned, her mouth curling into a shape that was just barely cynical.

"Very pretty, ranger. Perhaps you'll offer lessons to the lovestruck in the art of wooing when we reach safety." She turned toward Eithna, her eyes serious. "Evennia is my stepfather's sister. The Shining Blade have for years kept safe many of the Krytans the Mantle would have slaughtered. She is a good woman, and they are good people. If we can get the Scepter into their hands, we can undo the Mantle's stranglehold on this land. Believe us, Eithna."

Eithna nodded. "I want to. I am so tired of being afraid." She said it softly.

Riocard drew her into the circle of his arms with a gentle hug. "Not much longer, acushla. Two more watchtowers, and then a long run over the bridge, and we're homefree."

* * *

27.

Macha paused, pulling at Eithna's sleeve gently. "What?" Eithna whispered it. They were nearly to the second watchtower now, and Mantle paced the road below them incessantly.

Macha pointed at a small path leading out and around the watchtower in a broad sweep. It wasn't on the map, but it clearly circled the Mantle's fort in a wide swath. Eithna crept forward to where Riocard watched the guards change shifts. She slid into the grass on her belly beside him, waiting in silence for his concentration to end. After a moment, he crept backward slowly, gesturing for her to follow.

"What is it?" he asked when they'd gained a safe distance from the edge of the cliff overhanging the road.

"Macha's found a path around that's not on the map. If it's not on the map, perhaps the Mantle don't know it either," Eithna said softly. "It might be safer than trying to distract them again."

"Sneak past them," Riocard mused. "It just might work. Show me."

Macha took him further up the hill, and around where she and Eithna had paused. The small trail was overgrown, and was only visible from the top of the hill. From the road below, it would be blessedly invisible. Riocard nodded, and pulled the other three into the conference to discuss the alternate route. Sorcha was reluctant to stray from the map, fearing they'd be lost in the jungle around them, but Roibh encouraged her to listen to the others.

"If we can avoid a fight, Sorcha, it's worth trying," he said firmly.

Eithna giggled. "I never thought I'd hear you rooting for going fightless, Roibh."

He glared at her. "If it keeps Sorcha safer, flamethrower, I'm all of favour with the ranger's plan. If they get us pinned under that watchtower, we're all dead. Permanently."

Eithna nodded, giving his arm a punch. "I know. That's why I like Macha's path better too. I just can't resist teasing you."

"So." Aedan stood. "We're decided, then. We'll take the path around, and thwart the Mantle's watchful eye."

Riocard dusted off his boots and stretched. "Yes. We'll wait for full dark, and then go around. Until then, we rest." He handed around the small bag of dried meat pieces, and Sorcha passed the waterskin from one to the other. They ate, and took turns keeping watch in pairs until the last of the sun's light faded in a glorious symphony of flaming reds and oranges in the sky.

Eithna sighed, the colors feeling like a positive omen to her. It was as though the sky had been set on fire, and it felt like home. "We can do this," she whispered, waking Riocard and Macha as Roibh woke Sorcha and Aedan.

* * *

28.

Roibh strode down the path carefully. The air around him shimmered with an unholy green haze that felt as if it should choke him, but couldn't. He paused, waiting for Macha to catch up with him. Her body had tensed, and her eyes had taken on the green haze of the soupy air around them. Eithna looked unnerved by it as she reached them, fingering the heavy emerald at her throat again.

"Death magic," Macha said. "It's why Eithna's trying to crawl back into the Heart of the Forest again, and why I feel like I can fly. This part of Kryta is as laden with it as that necromantic village was in the Maguuma's lands."

Eithna shuddered, stroking the emerald with one hand, and playing with Riocard's braid with her other hand. "I can feel it. It feels like choking."

Sympathetically, Sorcha grazed Eithna with a warm stroke of healing. "It feels nearly as bad to me," she smiled. "But I can abide it."

Aedan drew a deep breath and smiled. "It feels close and hot, but good," he said. "But I don't think it's a good sign that it's this strong."

Riocard nodded, staring off, taking a few steps into the dense lush greenery around them to look further. He came back, grim of eye. "Necrid horsemen."

Macha shuddered. "Deadly. And they don't travel alone. If they're here, there's a cleric with them, and a wraith or two. How do you want to approach them, Riocard?"

"Straight on," he said. "We can't duck them, but we can take them if Roibh and I concentrate on them, and you four concentrate on the others. I can't strike smoke down with arrows, nor can Roibh slice it up."

"Will it burn, though?" Eithna murmured it, drawing Fire around herself tightly like a blanket over her skin. She felt the rush of it burning fear from her veins at Macha's slow nod.

"Oh, yes, Eithna. The undead burn, even the ethereal ones. You burn them down, and I will seize control of any minions they raise. Aedan, you send a weakness over the horsemen to drain them, and Sorcha will keep us all alive."

"I can," Sorcha said with quiet confidence. "I can do nothing to bring harm, but I can heal you all."

The six moved out onto the path at a run, Roibh and Riocard taking the lead to smash into the necrid horsemen pacing the dirt ahead. Eithna could scarcely stand the screams of the undead surrounding them. They were ringed with smoke phantoms and wraiths as she called fire down on them in heavy streams like deadly rain. They struck at her, and her body jerked with agony at the noxious scent of death, then again at the hard jolts of healing. Macha called hard to the ichorladen bone minions marching on them, and they turned on their master, cutting the cleric and horsemen to ribbons. Sorcha cried out as a storm of chaos interrupted her healing spell and whirled her off her feet. Aedan sliced furiously at the heavy black smoke of the phantom, sending a phantasm of fear to tear it apart. Eithna called up a Phoenix, burning brightly through the circle of wraiths, sending it crashing into one. Three fell before her fire, and three more to the minions Macha had seized from the damned cleric. Riocard looked grim as he set his arrows afire, burning the last of the smoke phantoms backward, clearing the path.

Eithna sat heavily, cramming a small shred of dried meat into her mouth, chewing reflexively. They lived, and the insectile crawling feel of the death magic had lightened. But it was far from gone. She closed her eyes to let her energies reaccumulate, and rested a moment as the others did the same.

"By Dwayna, those necrid horsemen die hard," Roibh exclaimed cheerfully. Battle filled him with vigor, despite his wounds. Sorcha frowned and slid her finger over a gaping slash on his chest.

Riocard laughed. "Aye, they do, warrior." He stroked comfort into Ruari's fur as the lynx prowled around him with a limp that faded with the ranger's petting. "One set down, but unless I'm mistaken, more to come."

Macha held her hands out with a satisfied smile. They dripped with bilious green ichor, but something shone on her palm. "I found it on the body of the cleric. It's a rune for increasing the power of the wearer's Death Magic." Eithna shuddered back from the waves of dark power emanating from the thing.

Riocard smiled. "Good fortune, then, Macha. That will help you much."

Aedan hugged her. "You thought to search the corpse. My smart woman."

Macha gave him an arch look. "Smart, yes." She kissed him soundly. "Yours, we'll see. I can feel more of it, and from the look on Eithna's face, I'd say she can too."

Eithna nodded. "The undead aren't done with us yet."

* * *

29.

"Be afraid, breathing ones," the soft voice hissed out of the darkness. "You come to my kingdom now, and you will find it less than welcoming."

Eithna nearly leapt out of her skin. The touch of that clotted hissing voice on her ears was blasphemy. She called Fire over herself as her companions ranged heavily around her. "Who are you?" she called out bravely, denying the fear making gooseflesh of her skin. "Come out and show yourself."

"I am your nightmare, bearer of life, and I will snuff out the green flame that so offends me." The purple-rimmed nightmare slid out of the shadows toward her, and hissed angrily. "I owe a lifetaking to the ranger for the death of my brother, Zukra. It will be a pleasure to kill you all this night."

"Dracul Cadava," Riocard answered, nocking an arrow. "As it will be my pleasure to send you to hell to join him."

The laughter of the undead monk sprayed the company of six with gobbets of rotting flesh, and Eithna moaned softly in horror, swiping at her cheeks. "You think I am fool enough to take the bearer of the Heart alone? Think again." A second horror grew out of the shadows around them, its bearing regal as it formed in choking black smoke.

"Gaiza Deadeye," Macha whispered, her fingers invoking something Eithna could feel but not see.

"Yesssss," the smoke answered, glowing purple. "Your death will gain me power, small breathing one." Macha paled as Gaiza Deadeye began working at her, his magic pulling at her own.

Eithna cried out in horror, and invoked the power of Rodgort on the pair as three necrid horsemen pounded out of the darkness, riding down on Roibh and Riocard. The two undead were set afire, and the smell of burning rotting flesh choked her. She gagged, pulling fiery rocks from the sky in a deadly shower to crush the horsemen as Riocard fired a volley on them and Roibh cleaved one's head from its body. Sorcha slammed healing into Macha as she paled and weaved on her feet, pulling a pair of bone minions from the horseman's corpse.

A high hissing scream came from Dracul Cadava as the meteor shower pelted him again. Eithna trembled, pulling a font of lava from the ground between him and the remaining horsemen, pelting them all with gouts of liquid flame. Aedan cupped his hands under her elbows, keeping her upright as she staggered to one side, her energy draining hard suddenly.

"Don't cast again," he shouted in her ear. "Let me cast off the enchantment he's laid on you first." Something wobbled in the air, and Eithna drew a breath of relief as a great weight lifted from her. She raised her head in time to see Riocard take a hard hit from the last of the horsemen before he killed it. Macha brought another pair of minions out of the body, sending them to join the four attacking Dracul and Gaiza. Eithna raised trembling arms, desperately trying to call down a firestorm on them as they hacked at Roibh. It fizzled, her energy draining again, and she was sent to her knees with a horrified cry of frustration. Aedan waved his cane over his head with a harsh grunting chant, and the undead monk staggered heavily. Roibh crushed him with a single stroke of his sword, and Gaiza turned on Aedan fiercely.

"You'll die for that," it hissed. Eithna felt the weight of weariness lift as Gaiza raised its arms to strike at Aedan, a cloud of billowing purple enveloping the mesmer. Aedan cried out in pain, pushing at it with his hands as if to dispel it as Riocard's arrows pierced Gaiza's concentration.

Eithna lifted her arms and pulled them down hard, feeling the crushing weight of the flaming stone she threw with her mind. It took every remaining ounce of energy, but the stone's strike threw Gaiza off its attack, and allowed Macha to poison it deeply with a hissing phrase and a gesture. It cried out, slicing at Riocard as it died, toppling him over Ruari who screamed defiance.

Sorcha rushed to the ranger, biting her lip as she sent twinkling clouds of turquoise energy to surround him, trying to burn the poison from his veins. Eithna crawled to him, shaking with exhaustion and fear, cradling his head in her lap.

"Help me," Sorcha whispered to her. "Use whatever you have left, for that creature's poison makes the spider poison look like nectar. If he dies of it, he will become like them."

"Dwayna preserve him," Eithna prayed, using her small healing skill to support Sorcha as they battled the strange toxins rushing through the ranger's body.

Sorcha sat straight and gazed at Macha evenly. "I have one more thing to try, necromancer. If I fail, kill us both."

Eithna gasped. "Sorcha, what are you doing?"

Sorcha leaned up and kissed Roibh lightly. "I love you. Now it's said. Remember that." She leaned out over Riocard, stretching herself over him, and took a long breath. Eithna watched her grow paler even as Riocard's color improved, and held her breath. Whatever the little monk was doing was working; she could feel the vitality flowing stronger through Riocard's body. Sorcha collapsed with a whimper as Riocard shook in the grip of the healing, convulsing before lying still.

Eithna laid hands on them carefully. Both breathed still, and she let her breath out in a rush, nodding at the others. "They live. She saved his life."

Roibh sank to his knees, gathering Sorcha into his arms, wrapping her in his blanket tenderly. "Dwayna be praised for that," he muttered. "We rest here until morning, and then we take our chances at the Mantle's stronghold, and with Dinas."

* * *

30.

The sun broke through the clouds in a glorious shimmer of bright reddish orange. "Sailors take warning," Eithna whispered softly.

"What?" Riocard looped his arm around her more securely as he sat halfway up, yawning and stretching. The night's rest had done wonders for him; Eithna could see it in the renewed shine in his eyes and the colour in his cheeks.

She smiled at him, stroking the soft feather-strewn braids capping his proud head. "Red sky at night; sailor's delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. It's an old saying my mother passed down to me from her ancestors. She told me how long ago they sailed oceans broader than a man could calculate, and found a home in the heart of the ocean."

"How long ago was that?" Riocard smiled back, rolling over to pillow his head on her thigh.

"Ages past," she told him. "Not even she knew how far back that saying went. I prefer to think of the bright morning sky as a good omen." She winked. "It's like someone set the sky on fire."

He laughed. "Aye, acushla, and one day you'll figure just how to do that very thing yourself."

"Likely," Eithna grinned back at him.

"I've never seen a mage the strength of you before," Riocard said softly, his eyes closing as Eithna stroked his face gently. "Not one that could twist fire to her will as you can. Not even the mages of the Burning Scepter whose wand you carry. Not even they could make the fire do what you can."

Eithna blushed softly, but smiled with pleasure at his words. "It was a terrible trial to my mother when I was young."

"She'll be proud of you now."

"Aye, if she could know," Eithna said wistfully. "They'll have all given us up for dead by now, Riocard, back in the Ascalon settlement."

He pulled her face gently to his for a soft, comforting kiss, then smiled. "She'll know it in her heart, Eithna. A mother always seems to."

"Day's wasting." Macha stood over them, tapping her toe on the ground. "No more loverly lollygagging about, you two. Roibh's made breakfast, and we've a fortress to infiltrate, and a valuable Scepter to steal before sundown."

Eithna made a face at her. "Do you think of anything other than your stomach, deathdealer?" she teased.

Macha's lips twisted into a slow, sensual grin. "Aye, flamethrower. Just ask yon Aedan."

Riocard burst into laughter as Eithna blushed heavily and hid her face in his hair. He sat up, still laughing, and tugged at Macha's black and red trouserleg. "Save an egg for us, Macha. We'll all eat heartily before we die today."

Eithna smacked his shoulder. "Not funny," she muttered. "Don't speak of dying. I can't think like that."

Riocard caressed her jawline lightly. "We succeed or we die, acushla. We'll see which is which today. Pray that Dinas doesn't betray us, or betray the Shining Blade."

* * *

31.

Riocard motioned the party for silence, then gave the signal to creep forward. As the guard changed at the front entrance to the stronghold of the White Mantle, he led them through a side entrance into the fortress. Silently, they slid through darkened corridors, past libraries of dusty tomes, and rooms filled with shining gold and treasures from across Kryta. Macha stiffened and jabbed Eithna in the ribs as she recognized spoils from the ramparts of Fort Ranik, and Ascalonian statuary and carvings. Her face was a mask of fury. Eithna drew a calming breath as they snuck past the room, trying not to think of how many of her friends and family had died under the outpouring of Charr brutes into Ascalon. It was one more thing she could not forgive the White Mantle.

Roibh gave a low sigh of desire as they dodged by the armory, whose walls were filled with shining weaponry. He pointed to the room and nudged Riocard. The ranger shook his head emphatically and mimed holding a long scepter, reminding Roibh of what it was they'd truly come to the heart of the White Mantle for in the beginning. Roibh scowled and shrugged, but sent a longing glance back at the room filled with armor and weapons.

They came to a quiet corner near the back northwest wall of the keep, and Riocard signaled them to wait and remain hidden. Eithna tensed as the ranger approached Dinas and the pair spoke in hushed whisper. She strained to make out what they were saying.

"My friend, it is good to see you again," Dinas began, his dark face all but hidden by the gleaming white and gold of his regalia. I didn't think, when we met off the D'Alessio Seaboard, that I would be giving you the Scepter of Orr. The day of the corruption of the White Mantle is coming to an end, and I am pleased to be able to help the noble Shining Blade as so many of you have helped me." He placed the scepter carefully into Riocard's hands, and pressed the ranger's fingers lightly around it. "Come, you must hurry. The Zealots will be here soon. I will show you the quickest escape route."

Riocard gestured and the five others emerged from the shadows to stand with him and listen to Dinas. Eithna's heart quickened with relief as she realized that Dinas was not going to hang them after all.

"To the east is a bridge that will take you over the Ullen River to safety. Stay off the beaten path, and whatever you do, avoid the watchtowers." Dinas paused reflectively, sadness crowning the look in his dark eyes. "Many men have died for this scepter. Guard it with your life."

Riocard heard a loud cry from the corridors beyond this darkened corner wall. "The Scepter! The Scepter!" The sound echoed back to him and he stiffened with alarm, pressing past Dinas toward the back exit of the keep.

Dinas raised the gate, and the six fled through it, the White Mantle again after them like a lynx after a moa bird. Eithna ran beside Sorcha, as Roibh kept the rear guard and Riocard the forward guard, spying out pockets of Mantle ahead of them. Ruari ducked and weaved among the thick forest, seeking out paths for them away from the well worn tread that bore the stamp of heavy boots and armored warriors.

"I can't run much longer," Sorcha whispered to Eithna, her hand pressing against her side.

"We can't stop," Eithna gasped back. "The White Mantle are too close. Can't you hear them behind us? They know we've stolen the damn scepter."

Sorcha nodded. "I know, but my legs. I haven't the strength for this kind of running."

"You mustn't stop." Eithna stayed with her, encouraging her, tucking the small blonde's hand into her own, squeezing her fingers encouragingly as they ran side by side. Sorcha's jaw set grimly as Eithna focused on the sway of Riocard's feathers and Ruari's loping run. She forced away the aching grip of abused muscles and kept running, fear fueling the flight as the party kept just ahead of the pursuing White Mantle.

Macha slowed for a moment as they turned a corner, nearly tripping over a neat row of gravestones. "Oh, Dwayna, I think we're saved. Bodies." She pointed, and nodded to Aedan, and they hastily raised a small army of undead minions. Macha's head and arms whirled as she bent to her necromantic magic, and Eithna could feel the strength of them beating at her like the wings of a thousand carrion flies. The death magic crawled over the graves, and bones curdled to the surface, standing ground to slow down the White Mantle's warriors as the six Ascalonians began running again.

"I may not," Macha gasped, "wish to give this to Evennia after all."

Aedan laughed wheezily, running at her side as she gripped the Scepter hard. "It strengthens you," he answered.

"I could have raised the entire graveyard alone," she said with effort, then fell silent again as they ran on toward the bridge.

"Heavens," Sorcha whispered to Eithna.

"Yes! That's it, and stone has never looked more beautiful," Eithna gasped back. She was in agony; from the sunbeaten pounding of her head to her raw and bleeding feet and every inch of screaming muscle in between, everything hurt. Her breath was a sharp knife in her throat and chest as she fought for air to keep going. The faint sparkle of Evennia's bright white clothing caught her eye.

"The bridge," Riocard called back to them. "Hurry, the White Mantle is catching us. Go, run across it. I'll hold them off." He turned and began firing arrows past the other five into the trees beyond.

They ran past him, and Eithna grabbed at his hand as they flew by. "Hurry, Riocard, don't wait!"

She tugged at him, running full out past the stones of the bridge and across the clunking logs connecting the stone arches. She scrambled over the last logs clumsily and fell gasping to the ground in a crouch to recover her breath. She watched as Riocard leapt over the end of the bridge, and turned with sword in hand.

"I command you to stop!" Confessor Dorian roared it at them, his warriors beginning to clomp over the bridge toward them.

Eithna looked despairingly at Evennia and the other Shining Blade gathered around her. "Help us!" she demanded, but as Evennia lifted her hands, Riocard sliced through the ropes of the bridge and dropped half of Dorian's company into the deep rocky chasm of the riverbed far below. Their deathscreams chilled Eithna even as the six exhausted Ascalonians limped away into safe lands at last.

* * *

EPILOGUE

In a warm, sandy curve of beach near Stingray Sands, Eithna smiled to herself and stretched lazily. She opened one eye to watch Ruari splashing in the ocean's warmth, and could have sworn the great cat was smiling. After the long journey through Kryta's forbidding jungles, the six Ascalonians had settled in a small village off Sanctum Cay called Fisherman's Haven. Ruari was content to keep Riocard company with the fishing and hunting that pleased them both, and Eithna's own small school for mages had attracted many of the power-laden Krytans the Shining Blade had saved. She smiled again, thinking of the lovely handfasting that morning that had joined the impulsive and brash Roibh to his quietly serene Sorcha, six months gone with a bouncing bellyful that Eithna swore would be just as noisy as his father. Sorcha had merely smiled and hugged the other woman. She'd miss the monk's quiet company while the two were on their wedding trip across the oceans of Tyria. She settled back into the sand with a sigh of contentment, enjoying the rare afternoon of peace and warmth. Palm trees swayed lazily overhead to a gentle breeze that kept the beach from being overly hot, and stirred the elegant bluegreen waters of the sea into shimmering ripples. And Riocard should be back from his visit with Saidra and Markis at any moment.

As though her thoughts had summoned him, his long shadow fell across her sandy retreat. She looked up at him with a smile. "Come to laze about with me, have you?" she said teasingly.

He shook his head and crouched beside her. "No." His gentle smile had a rueful curve to it. "Evennia has hatched another idea about the Scepter, acushla. I know it's peaceful here, and I know you're loathe to travel after all we went through to get here, but it's about a great mage named Vizier Khilbron…"

THE END….FOR NOW.


End file.
